I 


l-l 


The  True  William  Penn 


Uniform  with  this  Volume 

Th«  Trub  Gborgb  Washington.  By 
Paul  Leicester  Ford.    Illustrated.    $2.00 

Thb  Trob  Benjamin  Franklin.  By 
Sydney  George  Fisher.  Illustrated. 
^.00 

7*/  True  George  tVoihington,  The  Trut 
Beni'amin  Franklin,  and  The  True 
IVilliam  Penn.  Three  volume*  in  a 
box,  ^.00 

¥ 

OTHER  WORKS 
BY  SYDNEY  GEORGE  FISHER 

MbN.  WoMBN.  AND  MaNNBRS  IN  COLONIAL 

TiMBS.    Two  volumes,    zamo.    lUostra- 

ted.    $3 -co 
Tmk  Making  op  Phnnsylvania.     lamo. 

Red  buckram,  $1.50 
Thb   EvoLinrioM  op  thb  Constitution 

op  thb  Unitbd  States,    xamo.    Red 

buckram,  $1.50 
Pennsylvania:    Colony    and    Common* 

WEALTH,    zamo.    Red  buckrmm,  lx.50 


AKMOK    K)RTRAIT  OF   PENN    IN   THE   K>SSESSI()N   OF   MAJOR 
WILLIAM    DIJGALD  STUART 


The  True 
William   Penn 

By 

Sydney  George  Fisher 

Author  of  **The  True  Benjamin  Franklin,"  "Men,  Women,  and 
Manners  in  Colonial  Times,"  **  The  Making  of  Pennsyl- 
vania," *'The  Evolution  of  the  Constitution,"  etc. 


Illustrated 


**  In  deeds  pfjdar^p^  lecJtujde"; , 


Philadelphia 
J.  B.  Lippincott  Company 

1900 


1/ 


FS 


CorTKIGMT,   1899 

BY 

J.   B.   LiPPINCOTT    CuMPANT 


••    ,»,  .      •   •    • 

••••  •••• 

•   •    •  •  •      •    •• 


•  •  •   •        • 

,    ••   •        • 

•   •        • 


•    •  • 


EUCmOTVMD  ANO   PRINTtO  tV  J.  B.  LlPmNCOTT  COMMNY,  PhIUOELPHM.  U.&  A. 


Contents 


CHAPTXR  PAGB 

I.— The  Man ii 

II.— The  Times 31 

III.— Admiral  Penn 39 

IV. — Early  Influences 58 

V. — ^The  Quakers 67 

VI. — Cavalier  or  Quaker;  or  Both 95 

VII. — First  Imprisonment  and  Roughness  of  English 

Life 107 

VIII. — Controversy,  First  Principles,  and  Imprison- 
ment    121 

IX.— Trial  by  Jury  and  Hat  Honor 138 

X. — Penn    becomes    Rich,   and  also,  they  said,  a 

Dangerous  Man 151 

XI.— Rest  and  a  Sweetheart 162 

XII.— Persecution,  Oaths,  and  Controversy    ....  173 

XIII.— Travels  in  Holland  and  Politics  at  Home    .  181 

XIV.— The  Holy  Experiment  of  Pennsylvania  ...  197 

XV. — Great  Care  with  the  Constitution  and  Laws  217 

XVI. — First  Visit  to  the  Province 229 

XVII.— Returns  to  England  and  becomes  a  Courtier  252 

XVIII. — Supports  the  Despotism  of  James  II 280 

XIX. — Suspicions,  Conspiracies,  and  Hiding 302 

XX. — Returns  to  his  Old  Way  of  Life 337 

XXL— Pennsylvania  Again 343 

XXII.— A  Courtier  Again,  and  Again  in  Prison  ...  360 

XXIIL— The  End 377 


224094 


List  of  Illustrations  with  Notes 

PAGE 

Armor  Portrait  of  Penn  in  the  Possession  of 
Major  William  Dugald  Stuart  .  Frontispiece. 
From  a  photograph  of  the  painting  by  permission  of  Major 
Stuart.  The  other  armor  portrait  in  England  in  the  pos- 
session of  J.  Merrick  Head,  Esq.,  could  not  be  photo- 
graphed, because  of  extensive  alterations  at  Mr.  Head's 
country  seat,  Pennsylvania  Castle. 

Armor  Portrait  of  Penn  in  the  Pennsylvania  His- 
torical Society 13 

From  a  photograph  of  the  painting  by  permission  of  the 
Historical  Society 

The  Place  Portrait  of  Penn 15 

From  a  photograph  of  the  copy  of  the  painting  by  Francis 
Place,  in  Independence  Hall,  Philadelphia.  Permission  to 
photograph  the  original  in  England  could  not  be  obtained. 

The  Hall  Engraving  of  the  Bevan  Carving  .     .     17 

From  a  photograph  of  the  Hall  engraving  in  the  possession 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 

The  Bevan  Carving  of  Penn 18 

From  a  photograph  of  the  carving  in  the  collection  of  Alfred 
Waterhouse,  Esq.,  Yattendon  Court,  Berkshire,  England. 
The  carving  appears  to  have  been  cut  out  of  a  piece  of  ivory 
too  small  for  it,  so  that  the  back  of  the  head  has  not  the 
fulness  it  should  have.  Or  it  may  be  the  carving  was  an 
alto-relievo  with  a  background  from  which  it  has  been 
removed. 

The  Quaker  Meeting 20 

From  a  photograph  of  the  engraving  in  the  Historical 
Society  of  Pennsylvania. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  WI  I'H   NOTES 

rAOB 

Penn  and  Fox 22 

From  an  enlarged  photograph  of  the  engraving  of  the 
Quaker  Meeting  in  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania. 

The  Richardson  Portrait  of  Penn 24 

From  a  photogr^h  of  the  original  painting  in  the  posses- 
sion of  Mr.  E.  G.  Kennedy,  of  New  York. 

Admiral  Penn 55 

From  a  photograph  of  the  painting  by  Sir  Peter  Lely,  in 
Greenwich  Hospital.  London. 

GuLi  Springett,  Penn's  First  Wife 163 

From  a  photograph  of  an  old  stipple  engraying. 

Algernon  Sydney  192 

From  a  photograph  of  an  old  engraving  in  the  collection  of 
Mr.  Joseph  Y.  Jeans,  of  Philadelphia. 

Letitia  Street  House 239 

From  a  photograph  of  the  house  now  in  Fairmount  Park, 
Philadelphia. 

West's  Picture  of  the  Great  Treaty 243 

From  a  photograph  of  the  original  p>ainting  in  Indepen- 
dence Hall,  Philadelphia.  It  was  painted  by  West,  in  1773. 
at  the  request  of  the  Penn  family,  and  purchased  from  Gran- 
ville John  Penn  in  1851  by  Mr.  Joseph  Harrison,  of  Phila- 
delphia. 

Supposed  Wampum  Belt  of  the  Great  Treaty    .  246 

From  a  photograph  of  the  belt  now  in  the  Historical  Society 
of  Pennsylvania.  The  belt  was  given  to  the  Society  in  1857 
by  a  member  of  the  Penn  family,  among  whom  it  was  tradi- 
tionally believed  to  have  been  given  to  Penn  by  the  Indians 
at  the  time  of  the  Great  Treaty. 

James  II.,  Duke  of  York 254 

From  a  photograph  of  an  engraving  in  the  Historical 
Society  of  Pennsylvania. 

William  III 304 

From  a  photograph  of  an  engraving  in  the  Historical 
Society  of  Pennsylvania. 

8 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS   WITH   NOTES 

PAGB 

Hannah  Callowhill,  Penn's  Second  Wife  .     .     .  339 
From  a  photograph  of  the  copy  of  the  painting  by  Place, 
in  Independence  Hall,  Philadelphia.     Permission  to  photo- 
graph the  original  in  England  could  not  be  obtained. 

Penn's  Son  Thomas 340 

From  a  photograph  of  the  engraving  by  Martin,  in  the  His- 
torical Society  of  Pennsylvania. 

Pennsylvania  Castle 341 

From  a  photograph  of  the  painting  in  the  Historical  Society 
of  Pennsylvania.  The  castle  was  built  about  1815,  by  John 
Penn,  son  of  Thomas,  and  grandson  of  William  Penn.  In 
1887  it  passed  from  the  Penn  family  into  the  possession  of 
its  present  ownef,  J.  Merrick  Head,  Esq. 

James  Logan 349 

From  a  photograph  of  the  painting  formerly  at  Stenton,  and 
now  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  A.  C.  Logan,  of  Philadelphia. 

The  Slate- Roof  House 351 

From  a  photograph  of  the  engraving  in  the  Historical 
Society  of  Pennsylvania. 

Penn's  Bible,  with  Book-Plate 375 

From  a  photograph  of  the  Bible  in  the  Historical  Society 
of  Pennsylvania.  The  motto  on  the  book-plate,  "  Dum 
Clavum  Teneam,"  is  an  abbreviated  form  of  the  motto, 
"Dura  Clavum  Rectum  Teneam,"  which  means,  "If  I 
hold  a  steady  helm,"  or,  freely,  "  If  I  am  not  negligent." 

Penn's  Writing-Desk 379 

From  a  photograph  of  the  desk  in  the  Philadelphia  Library. 

Penn's  Burial-Place,  Jordan's  Meeting-House  .     .  384 

From  a  photograph  taken  by  Mr.  Julius  F.  Sachse.  Jordan's 
Meeting-House  is  in  Buckinghamshire,  west  of  London. 


The  True 
William   Penn 


I 

THE   MAN 

/WiLLiAM  Penn  is  now  usually  thought  of  as  a 
pious,  contemplative  man,  a  peace-loving  Quaker  in 
a  broad  brim  hat  and  plain  drab  clothes,  who 
founded  Pennsylvania  in  the  most  successful  manner, 
on  beautiful,  benevolent  principles,  and  kindness  to 
the  Indians. 

But  the  real  Penn,  though  of  a  very  religious  turn 
of  mind,  was  essentially  a  man  of  action,  restless 
and  enterprising,  at  times  a  courtier  and  a  politician, 
who  loved  handsome  dress,  lived  well  and  lavishly, 
and,  although  he  undoubtedly  kept  his  faith  with 
the  red-men,  Pennsylvania  was  the  torment  of  his 
life.  He  came,  moreover,  of  fighting  ancestry,  and 
was  himself  a  soldier  for  a  short  time.  His  life  was 
full  of  contests,  imprisonments,  disasters,  and  suffer- 
ing, if  not  of  actual  fighting,  and  he  lived  during 
the  most  critical  periods  of  English  history.  Few, 
if  any,  Quakers  have  shown  so  much  energy  as  he.  y 
Indeed,   there  have  been   few  men  who   have  at- 

II 


TUt:    IKUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

t^teiptccj  to  ^tccotaplush  so  much.  With  what  success 
we  shall  see. 

The  portraits  which  we  have  of  him  are  unfor- 
tunately very  unsatisfactory  sources  from  which  to 
learn  his  personal  appearance.  Some  of  them  are 
entirely  imaginary,  and  the  others  are  either  of 
doubtful  authenticity  or  made  from  recollection. 
There  is,  in  fact,  no  portrait  of  Penn  which  is  posi- 
tively known  to  have  been  painted  from  life. 

The  picture  of  him  most  familiar  to  Americans  is 
an  engraving  by  Schofif  made  from  a  painting  in  the 
Pennsylvania  Historical  Society,  which  represents 
him  as  a  young  cavalier  in  armor  at  the  age,  as  is  sup- 
posed, of  twenty-two.  There  is  also  a  smaller  en- 
graving by  Armstrong  less  well  known,  but  taken 
from  the  same  painting  with  the  assistance  of  a  pho- 
tograph *  of  a  similar  painting  in  England.  The 
engravings  are  substantially  alike,  but  by  no  means 
faithful  copies  of  the  painting  from  which  they  are 
taken,  or  of  the  photograph  of  the  painting  in  Eng- 
land. They  are,  however,  very  beautiful  pictures, 
idealizing  the  qualities  of  the  painting  and  represent- 
ing Penn  as  most  heroic  and  attractive. 

He  is  already  a  good  deal  idealized  in  the  painting 
from  which  they  are  taken,  and  appears  as  a  fresh- 
faced,  rosy-lipped,  but  very  serious-minded,  English 
youth,  clad  in  armor,  his  hair  parted  in  the  middle, 
and  the  long  cavalier  locks  reaching  to  his  shoulders. 
A  handsome  piece  of  lace  is  wound  several  times 


♦  This  photograph  is  now  in  the  collection  of  Hon.  James  T. 
Mitchell,  of  Philadelphia. 

12 


THE   ARMOR    IHJRTRAIT    OF    TENN    IN    THE    PENNSYLVANIA 
HISTORICAL   SOCIETY 


THE   MAN 

round  his  neck,  and  the  ends,  gathered  in  a  bunch 
at  the  throat,  rest  on  the  polished  breast-plate. 

The  face  and  eyes  look  straight  at  you  with  intense 
and  almost  startling  earnestness.  There  is  no  sense 
of  humor  in  the  features,  or  even  youthful  gayety. 
At  first  sight  you  might  say  that  the  face  was  melan- 
choly ;  but  close  inspection  leads  you  to  describe  it 
as  over-serious,  too  earnest  for  the  time  of  life. 

There  is  great  determination  expressed  in  it, — that 
sort  of  wild  determination  which,  when  combined 
with  a  lack  of  education,  makes  what  is  called  the 
fanatic.  But,  at  the  same  time,  every  line  in  the 
portrait  shows  that  the  young  man  is  of  cultured  and 
good  associations,  and  belongs  to  the  best  class  of 
his  time.  The  eyes  are  very  large,  and  it  is  in  them 
that  this  wild  determination  principally  resides  ;  and, 
at  the  same  time,  they  have  an  appealing,  soft,  lus- 
trous look.  Gentle,  sympathetic,  and  ideal  qualities 
are  evidently  combined  in  a  tumultuous  way  with 
some  sort  of  an  heroic  soul.  It  is  precisely  the  sort 
of  picture  one  would  paint  after  a  careful  study  of 
Penn's  life.  There  is  no  trace  of  shrewdness,  subtle 
tact,  or  deep  sagacity,  which  in  the  previous  volume 
of  this  series  we  found  to  be  so  characteristic  of 
Franklin's  face. 

We  can  easily  imagine  that  Penn  might  have 
l9oked  like  this.  We  know  that  he  was  very  reli- 
gious ;  and  the  face  of  this  portrait  is  not  the  hard, 
cunning  face  of  the  ecclesiastic,  nor  the  sour  face 
of  the  Puritan.  It  belongs  to  another  type  of  that 
strangely  religious  age,  the  type  of  the  smaller  sects, 
who  were  more  radical  than  either  Puritan  or  Church- 

13 


THE   TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

man,  who  were  not  plotting  for  political  control,  who 
took  their  mystical  religion  to  heart  with  simple, 
unworldly,  reckless  earnestness,  and  went  with  it  to 
the  prison  or  to  the  stake. 

Whatever  decision  may  be  reached  as  to  the 
authenticity  of  these  armor  portraits,  they  will  al- 
ways be  valued  by  Penn's  admirers  as  idealizations 
of  his  qualities.  It  is,  indeed,  hard  to  resist  the 
fascination  of  pictures  which  take  all  the  heroic  and 
intellectual  qualities  of  the  mature  man  and  depict 
them  in  his  boyish  face,  as  foreshadowing  what  he 
was  to  be. 

The  armor  portrait  in  the  possession  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Historical  Society,  was  given  by  Granville 
Penn  in  1833,  and  is  described  in  the  Society's 
Catalogue  of  Paintings  as  "entirely  authentic."  It 
was  for  a  long  time  believed  by  the  uninitiated  to 
be  an  original,  and  the  statement  usually  made  was 
that  the  family  had  had  t^\'o  of  these  portraits,  both 
painted  from  life  and  by  the  same  artist,  and  had 
retained  one  of  them  after  giving  the  other  to  the 
Historical  Society.  But  recently,  in  cleaning  the 
one  belonging  to  the  Historical  Society,  it  was 
found  to  be  of  very  modern  date,  and  seems  to  have 
been  painted  within  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

It  might  be  supposed  that  the  one  remaining  in 
England  in  the  possession  of  Major  William  Dugald 
Stuart  might  have  been  taken  from  life  ;  but  now  it 
appears  that  there  is  another  of  these  armor  por- 
traits in  the  possession  of  J.  Merrick  Head,  Esq.,  of 
Pennsylvania  Castle,  Dorset     Both  are  claimed  by 

14 


THE    PLACE    PORTRAIT    OF    PENN 


THE   MAN 

their  owners  to  be  originals.  But  connoisseurs  have 
grave  doubts  of  their  authenticity  because  little  or 
nothing  is  known  of  their  history,  and  it  is  not  even 
known  by  whom  they  were  painted.  They  are  not 
in  the  least  like  the  Bevan  carving  of  Penn,  the  only 
likeness  of  him  which  is  at  all  well  authenticated. 

A  portrait  purporting  to  be  a  likeness  of  Penn  at 
the  age  of  fifty-two,  painted  by  Francis  Place,  was, 
about  the  year  1874,  found  to  be  in  the  possession 
of  Mr.  Allan,  of  Blackwell  Hall,  County  Durham, 
England.  Place  was  an  amateur  artist,  contempo- 
rary with  Penn,  and  might  have  had  opportunity  to 
paint  a  portrait  of  him  from  life.  It  should  be  said, 
however,  that  Quakers  were  very  averse  to  sitting 
for  their  portraits,  because  it  savored  of  vanity  and 
injured  their  standing  among  those  whose  good 
opinion  was  of  value.  But  still  Place  might  have 
seen  Penn  at  various  times  and  painted  him  from 
recollection.* 

I  Those  who  accept  this  Place  portrait  as  anything 
of  a  likeness  can  the  more  easily  believe  in  the 
armor  portraits.  The  face  is  very  much  the  same  in 
each  ;  in  each  we  find  the  same  rather  staring,  anx- 
ious eyes ;  and  it  is  possible  to  imagine  that  the 
Place  portrait  is  the  man  grown  much  older,  stouter, 
and  with  the  look  of  uncertain  energy  changed  into 
one  of  more  settled  and  steady  determination. 

^  The  Place  portrait  has  also  some  of  that  same 
over-seriousness  which  is  so  noticeable  in  the  armor 


*Scribner's  Magazine,  vol.  xii.  p.  6;   Pennsylvania  Historical 
Society,  Catalogue  of  Paintings,  p.  27. 

15 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

portrait,  and  also  in  the  portrait  of  Penn*s  father, 
the  admiral.  In  fact,  the  resemblance  is  so  close 
that  those  who  have  carefully  studied  the  subject  are 
disposed  to  think,  and  with  good  reason,  that  the 
Place  portrait  is  a  likeness  of  the  admiral  and  not 
of  his  son.*  The  decisive  point,  however,  is  that 
this  Place  portrait  is  totally  unlike  the  Bevan  carv- 
ing, which  I  shall  now  describe. 

When  Lord  Cobham  was  adorning  his  gardens  at 
Stowe  with  statuary  towards  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  some  years  after  the  death  of 
Penn,  he  sought  for  a  portrait  of  Penn  to  be  copied, 
but  could  not  fine  one.  A  certain  Sylvan  us  Bevan, 
a  Quaker  apothecary  in  London,  skilful  in  amateur 
carving,  hearing  of  this,  made  a  little  ivory  bust  of 
Penn  as  he  recollected  him  and  sent  it  to  Lord 
Cobham  without  explanation.  His  lordship,  it  is 
said,  on  receiving  it,  exclaimed,  *•  Whence  came 
this?  It  is  William  Penn  himself;"  and  he  had  a 
statue  made  from  it  for  his  gardens. 

This  tale,  if  true,  is  somewhat  against  the  validity 
of  the  armor  and  Place  portraits,  for  Lord  Cobham, 
after  inquiry  only  a  few  years  after  Penn's  death, 
was,  it  is  said,  unable  to  hear  of  any  portrait  of  him. 
It  should  also  be  noted  that  Clarkson,  who  pub- 
lished his  memoirs  of  Penn  in  1814  and  was  very 
diligent  in  collecting  traditions  of  him,  says  that 
there  was  no  portrait  of  him  painted  from  life.  He 
relies  entirely  on  the  Bevan  carving. f 


♦  Jenkins's  Family  of  William  Penn,  p.  28. 
f  Clarkson's  Memoirs  of  Penn,  vol.  ii.  p.  260. 
16 


•>»     ^     } 


HE   JIALI,   KNCJRAVINC;   OF   THK   HKVAN    CARVING 


THE   MAN 

The  Bevan  bust,  or  carving,  though  small,  is  said 
to  have  been  a  good  likeness.  Robert  Proud,  the 
Quaker  historian  of  Pennsylvania,  who  was  in  Eng- 
land in  1750  and  stayed  with  Bevan,  reports  of  it : 

"  The  likeness  is  a  real  and  true  one,  as  I  have  been  informed,  not 
only  by  himself  (S.  B.),  but  also  by  other  old  men  in  England  of 
the  first  character  in  the  Society  of  Friends,  who  knew  him  in  their 
youth."     (Watson's  Annals,  edition  of  1844,  p.  iii.)* 

Bevan  is  said  to  have  made  three  of  these  ivory 
carvings  of  Penn.  He  sent  one  of  them  to  Penn- 
sylvania, to  James  Logan,  and  it  found  its  way  with 
the  Loganian  Library  to  the  Philadelphia  Library, 
where  it  was,  unfortunately,  burnt  in  a  slight  fire 
which  occurred  there  in  183 1.  I  have  been  unable 
to  find  any  one  who  recollects  its  appearance  or 
who  has  ever  heard  it  described.  Until  the  armor 
portrait  was  brought  to  this  country,  the  Bevan 
carving  and  engravings  of  it  were  all  that  people 
had  to  rely  upon  who  wished  to  know  what  Penn 
looked  like. 

An  excellent  engraving  of  the  Philadelphia  Bevan 
carving  was  made  by  John  Hall  in  1773.  But 
fortunately  we  do  not  have  to  rely  exclusively  on 
this  engraving.  One  of  the  two  other  carvings  that 
Bevan  made  is  still  in  existence  in  England,  and  I 


*  Mr.  Charles  Henry  Hart  has  called  my  attention  to  another  proof 
that  the  Bevan  carving  is  probably  a  correct  likeness.  In  the  Ameri- 
can Universal  Magazine  for  ]&nuaxy  2,  1797,  there  is  an  engraving  by 
Smithers  of  the  Bevan  carving  taken  from  a  drawing  by  Du  Simitidre, 
and  under  it  is  printed,  **  esteemed  by  Richard  Penn  a  good  like- 
ness." 

•  17 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

have  been  so  fortunate  as  to  obtain  a  photograph  of 
it.*  There  is  no  essential  difference  between  the 
photograph  and  the  engraving ;  and  after  an  exam- 
ination of  them  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the  con- 
clusion that  they  represent  a  man  totally  different 
from  the  one  we  see  in  the  armor  portraits  or  in  the 
Place  portrait  The  Bevan  portrait  has  a  very 
pointed  nose,  which  is  not  found  in  the  others,  and 
the  whole  expression  of  the  face  is  different 

The  armor  portraits  and  the  Place  portrait  show 
a  very  anxious,  serious  face.  In  a  sense  this  might 
be  natural,  because  we  know  that  Penn  had  many 
troubles  and  anxieties.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
serene,  cheerful  face  of  the  Bevan  portrait  conforms 
to  the  tradition  and  the  assertions  of  his  biographers 
that  he  took  all  his  difficulties,  his  imprisonments, 
and  his  loss  of  fortune  very  lightly,  and  was  fully 
sustained  in  his  worst  trials  by  his  sanguine  and 
courageous  temperament  If  the  Bevan  portrait 
is  anything  of  a  correct  likeness,  and  I  believe  it  is, 
it  is  impossible  to  believe  in  the  other  pictures. 

There  is  a  picture  described  by  Mr.  Julius  F. 
Sachse  in  his  "  German  Pietists  in  America,"  painted 
by  a  Dutch  artist,  Egbert  Hemskirck,  representing 
a  Quaker  meeting,  in  which  one  of  the  figures  is  sup- 
posed to  be  Penn.  Hemskirck  was  a  contemporary 
of  Penn,  and  his  picture  represents  a  meeting  of 
Quakers  in  Benjamin  Furly's  house  in  Rotterdam. 

♦  It  is  in  the  possession  of  Alfred  Waterhouse,  Esq.,  R.A.,  Yatten- 
don  Court,  Berkshire.  I  may  add  that  the  Pennsylvania  Historical 
Society  has  a  copy  in  marble  of  the  Bevan  carving  that  was  in  Phila- 
delphia. 

i8 


THK    BKVAN    CARVINC    OK    I'KNN 


THE  MAN 

The  figure  on  the  extreme  right  is  supposed  to  be 
George  Fox  ;  the  one  next  to  him,  with  his  right  foot 
resting  on  the  bench,  is  Penn.  Both  Fox  and  Penn, 
it  will  be  observed,  are  in  English  dress,  and  the  rest 
of  the  people  appear  to  be  Dutch. 

It  would  seem  at  first  sight  as  if  the  picture  was 
intended  to  be  somewhat  in  ridicule  of  the  Quakers, 
for  most  of  the  people  are  given  rather  ill-looking 
faces  except  Furly,  who  is  on  the  left  leaning  on  the 
gallery  with  his  hat  off  But  it  probably  represents 
an  ordinary  Quaker  meeting  of  the  time,  as  the  artist 
had  seen  them.  Furly  was  a  rich  man  and  the 
patron  and  protector  of  the  Quakers  in  Holland. 
He  was  a  close  friend  of  Penn,  and  Penn  and  Fox 
are  known  to  have  held  meetings  with  him  in  the 
year  1677.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  Dutch 
artist's  representation  of  Penn  gives  him  the  pointed 
nose  which  we  find  in  the  Bevan  carving.  He  looks 
like  the  active,  busy,  energetic  man  of  affairs  he 
was ;  but  there  is  nothing  religious  about  the  face. 
It  is,  however,  very  life-like  and  interesting,  and  I 
am  inclined  to  have  some  confidence  in  it 

There  is  a  German  engraving  of  Penn  by  Kuhner, 
often  reproduced,  and  purporting  to  be  taken  from 
a  portrait  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  who  was  a  well- 
known  court  painter  in  Penn's  time.  But  nothing  is 
known  of  the  original  picture  which  this  engraving 
professes  to  reproduce,  and  it  is  generally  believed 
to  be  a  copy  of  the  Bevan  carving,  which  it  closely 
resembles. 

Still  another  portrait  of  Penn  has  recently  come  to 
light  and  is  now  owned  in  America.     It  is  believed 

19 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

to  be  by  Jonathan  Richardson,  who  was  a  well- 
known  artist  and  a  contemporary  of  Penn.  It  has 
the  pointed  nose  and  double  chin  of  the  Bevan 
carving,  and  cannot,  therefore,  be  rejected  by  the 
critics.  It  is  well  painted,  animated,  and  the  green 
coat  and  careful  details  make  it  an  exceedingly  in- 
teresting picture. 

There  are  rumors  that  there  was  at  one  time  a 
portrait  of  Penn  by  Sir  Peter  Lely,  who  painted  the 
likeness  of  Penn's  father,  but  the  picture  itself  has 
not  yet  been  discovered. 

Benjamin  West's  picture  of  the  famous  treaty 
with  the  Indians  gives  us  a  representation  of  Penn, 
but  it  is  purely  imaginary.  The  large,  full-length 
portrait  painted  by  Inmap  for  the  Penn  Society,  and 
now  in  Independence  Hall,  Philadelphia,  merely  fol- 
lows West's  representation,  and  as  it  is  also  purely 
imaginary  and  adds  nothing  to  our  knowledge  of 
Penn's  real  appearance,  it  has  not  been  reproduced 
for  this  book.  For  the  same  reason  the  old  lead 
statue  in  front  of  the  Pennsylvania  Hospital  has  been 
omitted. 

The  large  bronze  statue  which  was  cast  some  years 
ago  for  the  tower  of  the  City  Hall,  in  Philadelphia, 
represents  Penn  as  tall,  vigorous,  and  handsome,  as 
he  is  supposed  to  have  been  when  he  was  about  forty 
years  old  and  first  took  possession  of  Pennsylvania. 
This  statue,  though  by  no  means  what  was  desired 
and  expected,  was  modelled  after  careful  consulta- 
tion with  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
particular  attention  was  given  to  the  dress.  It  is  the 
cavalier  costume  of  the  period,  with  the  sword,  the 

ao 


!  -H' 


s 


THE   MAN 

feather  in  the  hat,  and  the  silver  trimmings  on  the 
coat  omitted.  This  is  believed  to  have  been  Penn's 
dress  for  a  long  time  after  he  became  a  Quaker. 
He  even  for  a  time,  it  is  said,  wore  his  sword.  He 
was  rather  fond  of  good  clothes.  He  altered  the 
dress  which  marked  his  class  and  station  in  life  only 
by  making  it  somewhat  plainer  than  that  of  the  gay 
cavalier. 

This  seems  to  have  been  the  practice  of  all  the 
early  Quakers.  They  did  not  adopt  a  distinctive 
dress,  but  made  the  one  they  were  accustomed 
to  plainer.  The  broad-brim  hat  and  straight-cut 
coat  were  not  the  original  Quaker  costume.  It  was 
the  shifting  and  changing  of  fashions,  and  exces- 
sive ornamentation,  that  they  particularly  disliked. 
Many  of  them,  especially  in  Pennsylvania  in  colonial 
times,  while  adhering  to  one  fashion,  wore  clothes 
of  the  most  handsome  and  expensive  materials.  The 
sculptor,  however,  took  liberties  with  the  instruc- 
tions of  the  Historical  Society,  and  has  probably 
represented  Penn  less  plain  than  he  really  was,  and 
in  a  way  that  does  not  add  to  the  dignity  of  the 
statue. 

The  more  we  investigate  Penn's  personal  appear- 
ance the  more  confusing  we  find  the  accounts  of  it. 
Not  only  do  we  find  his  portraits  contradictory,  but 
we  find  some  writers  describing  him  as  a  tall  man, 
others  as  above  the  medium  height,  and  others  as  a 
short  man.  In  Watson's  **  Annals  of  Pennsylvania" 
the  recollections  are  given  of  an  old  woman  who 
professed  to  have  seen  him  when  he  visited  his 
province. 

21 


% 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

"  She  described  him  as  of  rather  short  stature,  but  the  handsomest, 
best- looking,  lively  gentleman  she  had  ever  seen.  There  was  nothing 
like  pride  about  him ;  but  affable  and  friendly  with  the  humblest  in 
life."     (VoLup.55.) 

Clarkson,  relying,  I  presume,  on  traditions  gath- 
ered among  the  English  Quakers,  describes  him  as 
a  tall  man ;  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  this  is  cor- 
rect Hemskirck's  painting  of  the  Quaker  meeting 
represents  him  as  rather  tall,  and  Hemskirck  would 
be  apt  to  give  his  figure  correctly.  He  might  be 
inaccurate  in  his  recollections  of  Penn's  face,  but 
he  could  easily  remember  whether  he  was  tall  or 
shftrt. 

Penn  was  a  man  of  education,  and,  indeed,  quite 
earned.  He  knew  something  of  Latin,  and  corre- 
sponded in  that  tongue  with  Sewell  the  Quaker  his- 
torian. He  also  studied  Greek,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
like  any  Oxford  man,  and  he  seems  to  have  known 
French,  German,  and  Dutch  well  enough  to  read 
and  speak  in  them.  He  read  widely  on  theology, 
government,  and  all  the  topics  of  his  time,  as  is 
abundantly  shown  in  his  writingsy  But  the  most 
striking  proof  of  his  wide  reading  is  to  be  found  in 
some  of  his  essays  or  pamphlets,  to  which  he  has 
added  quotations  and  citations  of  all  the  ancient 
and  modern  authors  that  he  could  find  in  support 
of  his  theses.  In  his  "Treatise  of  Oaths,"  there  are 
over  fifty  instances  in  which  he  either  quotes  the 
words  or  states  the  opinion  of  some  Greek  or  Roman 
philosopher  or  statesman,  or  of  some  saint  or  father 
of  the  church.  In  the  second  part  of  "  No  Cross, 
No  Crown,"  there  are  over  one  hundred  and  thirty 

22 


& 


^^:>g/'?g^'^'<'y?''^^Ty-:.;:^-  "7^^  ■'"••, ri^v-^  .^•g^^»^-t.'v^^^gj^i!ac?&^^?yg 


wmsm 


PKNN    AND    FOX 


THE   MAN 

of  these  instances,  and  they  range  from  the  most 
remote  antiquity  through  the  days  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  the  distinguished  men  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  down  to  the  men  of  his  own  day  in  England. 
The  labor  of  hunting  for  these  in  the  libraries  of  the 
time  must  have  been  very  great,  and  he  could  not 
have  collected  such  masses  for  the  particular  occa- 
sions on  which  he  used  them,  unless  he  was  already 
somewhat  acquainted  with  them  in  a  general  way. 

It  is  easy  to  see  in  his  life  and  character  that  he 
was  inspired  by  this  labor.  He  loved  great  and 
noble  thoughts,  grand  ideas  of  world-wide  improve- 
ment and  reform.  This  passion  led  him  to  read  the 
lives  of  all  who  had  been  remarkable,  and  their  soul- 
stirring  words,  the  enthusiasm  of  their  success,  or  the 
heroism  of  failure  or  defeat,  stimulated  to  still  loftier 
heights  the  passion  that  had  led  him  to  this  study. 

He  was  evidently  one  of  those  who  study  history 
largely  through  biographies ;  and  if  one  wishes  to 
be  aroused  and  inspired,  that  is  certainly  the  best 
method  to  pursue.  From  his  natural  bent,  and  these 
studies,  he  had  filled  his  mind  with  all  the  most  pro- 
gressive and  philanthropic  ideas  that  had  been  sug- 

ygested  in  the  whole  course  of  written  human  history. 

(He  knew  all  the  distinguished  men  in  England  of 
his  day  ;  and  many  of  them  he  knew  very  intimately. 
He  travelled,  both  in  England  and  in  foreign  countries, 
more  than  most  people  of  that  time.      He  was  born 

/and  educated  among  the  aristocracy,  and  always  as- 

l  sociated  with   them  freely ;    and,  as   a  Quaker,   he 
^tecame  very  intimate  with  the  middle  and  lower 
ilasses.^ 

«3 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 


r. 


He  was  certainly  in  a  way  to  be  a  man  of  enlarged 
mind  ;  and,  in  truth,  he  was  too  much  so.  His 
liberality  was  developed  at  the  expense,  as  we  shall 
see,  of  many  practical  qualities.  Although  he  had 
read  so  many  biographies,  he  was  not  a  shrewd 
judge  of  the  characters  by  whom  he  was  sur- 
rounded in  actual  life.  He  could  arouse  people  into 
enthusiasm  for  his  great  ideas,  but  he  had  not  a 
corresponding  power  for  carrying  those  ideas  into 
practical  effect  When  living  in  his  colony  he  man- 
aged it  well,  and  when  away  from  it  he  managed  it 
very  badly ;  and  he  was  a  careless  man  of  business./^ 
He  planned  everything  on  a  vast  scale,  with  an 
attempt  to  look  far  mto  the  future.  He  was  so  far 
in  advance  of  his  time  in  everything  that  he  con- 
stantly suffered  defeats,  which  a  shrewder  man,  like 
Franklin,  for  example,  would  have  avoided  by  being 
more  moderate.  He  knew  that  he  was  much  ahead 
of  his  age,  but  he  would  not  be  otherwise ;  and, 
indeed,  there  is  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  setting 
a  high  and  absolute  standard  and  holding  to  it 
heroically. 

/^"it  was  a  great  misfortune  to  him  that  in  his  re- 
'ligious  and  political  writings  he_lacked  the  power  of 
lucid  and  concise  expression.  He  was  a  rather  vo- 
iMjOjinous  writer/  but  in  politics  and  theology  a  very 
dull  one.  When  he  had  a  good  thought,Tie  usually 
suffocated  it  in  an  inextricable  tangle  of  words  and 
parentheses.  His  writings  could  be  made  excellent 
object-lessons  to  show  how  not  to  use  the  parenthesis. 
When  he  sat  down  to  write  one  of  his  essays,  he 

seems  to  have  tried  to  make  it  as  long  as  possible, 

24 


THK    RICHARDSON    PORTRAIT    OK    }>KNN 


THE   MAN 

to  use  as  many  words  as  possible,  and  to  interpo- 
late all  manner  of  irrelevant  things  so  as  to  pre- 
vent his  phrases  from  having  any  point  or  snap.  It 
is  a  dreary  business  to  dig  out  his  opinions  after 
having  written  a  life  of  the  vivid,  sparkling,  pointed 
Franklin. 

He  never  trained  himself  in  conciseness  as  Frank- 
lin did.  In  fact,  he  did  not  train  himself  at  all  in 
writing.  He  would  probably  have  despised  anything 
of  that  kind  as  over-nice  and  too  particular.  "To 
be  nice,"  he  says,  in  his  maxims,  "is  not  only  i 
troublesome,  but  a  slavish  thing."  The  bent  of  hig 
mind  was  altogether  away  from  the  minute  detail^ 
which  produce  excellence  of  this  sort.  Iie_was„  al- 
for  great  ideas  and  generalities;  1- 

Sometimes  when  circumstances  compelled  him  ' 
be  concise,  his  style  greatly  improved,  and  he  sa 
things  which  are  of  permanent  value  for  the  way 
which  they  are  put.     In  drafting  the  documents  W 
the  government  of  Pennsylvania,  he  had  to  be  bri 
and  several  of  his  statements  of  principles  are  sti  ^ 
often  quoted  and  admired  for  their  aptness.  o 

"There  is  hardly  one  frame  of  government  in  the  wotld  so  ill  de- 
signed by  its  founders,  that  in  good  hands  would  not  do  wellehougK'T' 

"  Any  government  is  free  to  the  people  under  it  (whatever  be  Jthie 
frame)  where  the  laws  rule  and  the  people  are  a  party  to  thnsp  laws»"r 

His  famous  letter  to  his  wife  and  children  on  his 
departure  for  Pennsylvania,  and  his  description  of 
that  province  sent  to  the  Free  Society  of  Traders, 
are  also  remarkably  free  from  his  usual  faults,  and 
written  in  very  mellow,  pretty  language.  Some  of 
his  more  important  correspondence  is  also  written  in 

25 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

this  same  happy  manner.  His  biographer,  Stough- 
♦  ton,  thinks  that,  if  Penn  had  cared  to,  he  could 
always  have  written  in  this  vein,  but  that  in  most 
of  his  writings  he  thought  it  necessary  to  adopt  the 
canting  language  which  had  become  habitual  and 
sacred  among  the  Quakers. 

When  he  was  nearly  fifty  years  old,  and  obliged 

to  conceal  himself  after  the  Revolution  of  1688,  he 

wrote  an   essay  called  "Some  Fruits  of  Solitude," 

containing  five  hundred  and  fifty-six  "  maxims  and 

eflections,"  the  result  of  his  experience  of  life,  and 

ontemplation  of  it  in  retirement.     Afterwards,  he 

vrote  another  essay  called   "  More  Fruits  of  Soli- 

ade,"  and  this  contains  two  hundred  and  ninety- 

ne  maxims.     It  is  curious  to  observe  that  when 

•  confines  a  maxim  to  ten  or  a  dozen  words,  it 

cen  has  some  point.  But  he  could  not  always 
train  himself     Many  of  the  maxims  are  enlarged 

CO  good-sized  paragraphs,   and  have    to  be  read 

ice  to  see  their  meaning. 

I  can  assure  the  reader  that  it  is  a  real  penance  to 
4ead  through  these  eight  hundred  and  fifty  maxims. 
I  have  performed  that  task  and  gathered  the  dozen 
or  so  grains  of  wheat  out  of  the  ton  of — I  was 
about  to  say  chaff;  but  I  can  hardly  apply  that 
word  to  so  much  sound  morality  and  spiritual  senti- 
ment merely  because  it  has  the  misfortune  to  be 
cumbersomely  expressed.  We  can,  at  least,  say 
that  those  who  complain  of  Franklin's  maxims  as 
too  shrewd  and  worldly,  too  thrifty  and  money- 
getting,  will  not  be  able  to  make  that  complaint  of 
Penn's.     The  tone  of  all  that  Penn  says  is  excellent 

26 


THE   MAN 

and  elevating.  We  shall  grow  rich  under  his  advice 
only  in  generosity,  magnanimity,  liberty,  and  human 
kindness. 

"They  have  a  right  to  censure  that  have  a  heart  to  help." 
"Never  marry  but  for  love;   but  see  that  thou  lov'st  what  is 

lovely." 

**  There  can  be  no  friendship  where  there  is  no  freedom." 
"Some  men  do  as  much  begrudge  others  a  good  name  as  they 

want  one  themselves  ;  and  perhaps  that  is  the  reason  of  it." 

"  Nor  can  we  fall  below  the  arms  of  God,  how  low  soever  it  be 

we  fall." 

Some  of  his  maxims  on  education  are  interesting 
because  so  far  in  advance  of  his  time,  and  because 
they  embody  the  same  ideas  which  Franklin  after- 
wards amplified  and  sought  to  establish  in  the  Col- 
lege of  Philadelphia. 

"  We  are  in  pain  to  make  them  scholars,  but  not  men  !  To  talk, 
rather  than  to  know  ;  which  is  true  canting. '  * 

"  The  first  thing  obvious  to  children  is  what  is  sensible ;  and  that 
we  make  no  part  of  their  rudiments." 

"We  press  their  memory  too  soon,  and  puzzle,  strain,  and  load 
them  with  words  and  rules ;  to  know  grammar  and  rhetoric,  and  a 
strange  tongue  or  two,  that  it  is  ten  to  one  may  never  be  useful  to 
them ;  leaving  their  natural  genius  to  mechanical  and  physical  or 
natural  knowledge  uncultivated  and  neglected  ;  which  would  be  of 
exceeding  use  and  pleasure  to  them  through  the  whole  course  of 
their  life." 

"  To  be  sure,  languages  are  not  to  be  despised  or  neglected.  But 
things  are  still  to  be  preferred." 

"Children  had  rather  be  making  of  tools  and  instruments  of 
play,  shaping,  drawing,  framing,  and  building,  &c.,  than  getting 
some  rules  of  propriety  of  speech  by  heart.  And  those  also  would 
follow  with  more  judgment,  and  less  trouble  and  time." 

For  one  of  his  maxims  he  certainly  deserves 
credit,  and  the  maxim  deserves  a  wide  circulation. 

27 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

*'To  do  evil  that  good  may  come  of  it  is  for  bunglers  in  politics 
as  well  as  morals." 

His  description  of  the  wise  man  is  also  rather 
good 

'*The  wise  man  is  cautious,  but  not  cunning;  judicious  but  not 
crafty;  making  virtue  the  measure  of  using  his  excellent  under- 
standing in  the  conduct  of  his  life." 

"The  wise  man  is  equal,  ready,  but  not  officious." 

His  maxim,  *'  The  less  form  in  religion  the  better, 
since  God  is  a  spirit,"  is  a  very  complete  though 
brief  summary  of  his  religion  and  the  religion  of  the 
Quakers.  In  his  letter  to  William  Popple,  he,  with- 
out perhaps  intending  it,  made  an  excellent  maxim. 

"  We  can  never  be  the  better  for  our  religion  if  our  neighbor  be 
the  worse  for  it." 

There  is  only  one  of  his  maxims  that  savors  at  all 
of  the  keen  shrewdness  of  Franklin's.  It,  perhaps, 
can  be  applied  to  our  own  times. 

"  Let  the  people  think  they  govern  and  they  will  be  governed." 

According  to  Bishop  Burnet,  Penn's  conversation 
was  even  more  wordy  and  cumbersome  than  his 
political  writings. 

•*  He  was  a  vain  talking  man.  He  had  such  an  opinion  of  his  own 
faculty  of  persuading,  that  he  thought  none  could  stand  before  it, 
though  he  was  singular  in  that  opinion  ;  for  he  had  a  tedious,  luscious 
way  of  talking  not  apt  to  overcome  a  man's  reason,  though  it  might 
tire  his  patience." 


/ 


There  may  be  some  truth  in  this  statement  Penn 
was  an  enthusiast,  and  when  talking  on  his  favorite 
themes  he  very  likely  heaped  up  the  words  and  bore 

28 


THE   MAN 

down  opposition  by  energy  and  long-windedness. 
He  was  **  luscious,"  or  nauseatingly  eloquent,  as  the 
word  may  be  translated,  from  excessive  zeal  in  his 
subject.  Burnet  himself  was  also  afflicted  in  that 
way. 

But  other  and  less  prejudiced  persons  than  Burnet 
found  great  pleasure  in  Penn's  conversation,  and  there 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  by  no  means  so 
dull  as  his  writing.  Swift,  who  was  surely  a  judge 
of  such  things,  said  he  **  talked  very  agreeably  and 
with  much  spirit**  Tillotson  found  great  pleasure 
in  his  acquaintance ;  Clarkson  calls  attention  to  the 
Gentleman  s  Magazine  of  April,  1737,  where  some 
one  who  had  travelled  with  Penn  in  a  stage-coach, 
says,  ''And  a  pleasant  companion  he  was."  The 
tradition  among  the  Quakers  in  England  seems  to 
have  been  that  he  was  rather  animated  in  conversa- 
tion and  disposed  to  be  facetious  \  and  some  of  the 
traditions  and  anecdotes  preserved  in  Pennsylvania 
are  also  to  that  effect  He  certainly  had  seen  a 
great  deal  of  the  world,  and  this,  with  his  wide 
reading  and  genial  temperamfiat,  must  have  made 
his  conversation  very  agreeable  when  he  was  not 
carried  away  by  zeal  for  his  unusual  opinions.  His 
usual  manner,  I  am  inclined  to  think  from  various 
incidents  I  have  read,  was  one  of  bluff  heartiness. 

\  It  would  seem  that,  until  he  becanie  a  rather  old 
man,  Pennjy^s  ve;y  f|-^e  from  disease.]  But  the  de- 
tails we  have  of  his  life  are  not  complete,  and  he 
might  have  had  illnesses  which  have  not  been  re- 
corded. ( He  had  a  vigorous  constitution,  and,  with- 
out it,  could  hardly  have  endured,  without  serious 

29 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

injury,  the  frequent  imprisonments  in  pestilential 
dungeons  which  he  suffered  in  his  youth. 
/  For  the  rest  of  his  life  we  find  him  very  actively 
engaged  in  the  varied  business  of  a  leader  and  or- 
ganizer of  the  Quakers,  a  defender  of  them  from 
persecution,  a  poHtician,  a  courtier,  a  founder  of  a 
colony,  and  suffering  great  losses  of  fortune  and 
severe  anxiety.  He  was  of  a  sanguine  tempera- 
ment, and  this  disposition  may  have  contributed  to 
his  health.  As  he  grew  older  he  had  the  gout ;  but 
it  seems  he  was  careful  to  take  systematic  exercise, 
and  the  disease  never  seized  him  with  any  great 
severity.  / 


II 

THE  TIMES 

Penn  was  born  October  14,  1644,  and,  as  we  read 
English  history,  that  seems  a  troublous  time  for  a 
child  to  come  into  the  world,  especially  a  child  that 
was  to  be  a  man  of  peace.  England  was  full  of 
religious  and  political  confusion.  The  great  ideas 
of  government  and  religion  by  which  we  have  been 
living  for  two  hundred  years  were  then  struggling 
for  existence  in  their  primitive  form,  and  for  the 
next  fifty  years  were  tossed  about  in  the  wild  tumult 
of  wars,  revolution,  and  religious  persecution. 

There  were  two  great  political  parties,  the  Roy- 
alists and  the  Roundheads,  and  several  great  re- 
ligious parties,  the  Church  of  England,  the  various 
divisions  of  the  Puritans,  and  the  Roman  Catholics, 
besides  numerous  fanatical  small  sects  which  were 
fiercely  in  earnest  to  establish  their  principles  of 
politics  or  religion.  At  that  time  the  discussion  of 
such  principles  was  not  confined  to  argument  Each 
party  and  each  religion  was  prepared  for  force,  to 
inflict  or  to  suffer  martyrdom,  to  fight  or  to  die  in 
their  cause. 

For  nearly  half  a  century  the  king  had  been 
struggling  hard  to  build  up  the  power  and  privi- 
leges of  the  crown  against  Parliament  and  the  people. 

31 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

James  I.  had  been  very  diligent  in  this,  and  tyranny 
was  gaining  in  spite  of  the  frantic  and  spasmodic 
struggles  of  the  people  against  it.  Tyranny  was 
growing  because  England  was  growing.  As  the 
island  became  more  and  more  civilized  and  began 
to  take  a  place  among  the  nations,  organization  be- 
came more  and  more  necessary.  Regular  methodi- 
cal government  must  succeed  the  easy,  noble,  and 
manly  freedom  which  was  instinctive  with  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Vikings,  Angles,  and  Saxons.  The 
followers  of  the  king  and  all  who  admired  absolute 
monarchy  or  loved  place  and  power  took  advantage 
of  this  necessity  to  develop  royalty  and  a  church  es- 
tablished by  law,  and  for  a  long  time  they  were  very 
successful. 

Other  things,  however,  were  growing  besides  the 
royal  power  and  the  Church  of  England.  The  great 
movement  of  the  Reformation,  starting  in  the  inven- 
tion of  printing  and  the  revival  of  learning,  was  still 
stimulating  independent  thought,  arousing  and  en- 
couraging more  and  more  the  Puritan  sects,  and 
leading  them  to  see  their  interest  in  developing  the 
ancient  Anglo-Saxon  liberties,  as  the  Royalists  saw 
their  interest  in  developing  the  kingly  power.  // 

Strange  creatures  were  those  Puritans  and  other 
sects  who  had  only  recently  broken  through  the  re- 
straints of  the  Middle  Ages  and  begun  to  think  for 
themselves.  From  the  system  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
which  ignored  the  Bible  altogether,  they  had  rushed 
to  the  opposite  extreme  of  accepting  it  so  literally 
that  they  gave  their  children  the  strange  un-English 
names  they  found  in  the  Old  Testament     From  the 

32 


THE  TIMES 

Church  of  Rome,  which  governed  as  an  absolute 
monarchy  and  governed  too  much,  the  Presbyte- 
rians had  reacted  to  a  system  of  representative  or 
repubhcan  church  government  made  up  of  elective 
assemblies  and  synods,  while  others,  the  Inde- 
pendents and  Congregationalists,  had  reacted  to  the 
principle  that  there  should  be  .no  general  church 
government  at  all,  and  each  congregation  should  be 
a  law  unto  itself  in  doctrine  and  discipline.  From 
the  excesses  of  image  worship  and  ritual  they  had 
gone  to  the  extreme  of  abolishing  all  ritual,  vest- 
ments, and  images,  adopting  extemporaneous  prayer 
instead  of  prayers  read  from  a  book,  and  preaching 
to  a  congregation  that  sat  within  four  bare  walls. 

They  were  austere  in  their  manners ;  they  dis- 
ciplined themselves  into  a  hatred  of  all  amusements 
and  pleasures.  They  saw  the  terrible  side  of  re- 
ligion ;  they  convinced  themselves  of  original  sin, 
with  which  every  man  was  born,  and  for  which  the 
vast  majority  of  mankind  would  be  burnt  forever  in 
hell  by  a  wrathful  God  who,  to  gratify  his  rage  and 
pleasure,  had  foreordained  them  to  their  fate,  in 
spite  of  the  good  deeds  and  works  they  might  do 
on  earth. 

They  encouraged  all  feelings  that  were  gloomy 
and  sombre,  which  were,  they  thought,  alone  com- 
patible with  religion.  They  relied  on  inward  expe- 
riences and  feelings  of  conversion  to  supply  the  place 
of  the  dogmas  and  forms  they  had  rejected.  They 
trained  their  faces  to  conform  to  their  feelings,  as- 
sumed sour,  malignant  expressions,  whined,  groaned, 
and  drawled  in  their  speech. 
3  33 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

They  were  accompanied  by  smaller  sects,  with 
•  minds  still  more  distorted  by  the  new-found  liberty 
of  the  age, — fifth  monarchy  men,  who  believed  that 
Christ  was  about  to  come  to  establish  an  earthly 
kingdom  for  a  thousand  years.  Desperate,  danger- 
ous fellows  they  were ;  for  when  the  rage  of  their 
belief  was  on  them  and  they  thought  the  kingdom 
about  to  come,  they  would  fight  like  devils,  attacking 
the  militia  and  soldiery  with  the  utmost  fury  and 
refusing  quarter. 

Pepys  describes  how  thirty-one  of  them,  shouting, 
"The  King  Jesus  and  the  heads  upon  the  gates!" 
put  all  London  in  terror,  routed  the  trainbands,  put 
the  king's  lifeguard  to  the  run,  broke  through  the 
city  gates,  killed  twenty  men,  and  led  every  one  to 
believe  that  they  numbered  five  hundred,  while 
every  householder  armed  himself,  and  forty  thousand 
stood  ready  to  oppose  these  fierce  fanatics.* 

Then  there  were  strange  antinomian  and  familistic 
sects,  who  found  their  liberty  in  dropping  the  original 
sin  and  gloom  of  the  Puritans  and  believing  that  there 
was  scarcely  any  sin  at  all,  and  that  love  and  con- 
templation were  religion.  0(  these  we  shall  have 
more  to  say  hereafter,  for  they,  together  with  the 
Puritans,  created  a  phase  of  religious  thought  which 
had  great  influence  on  William  Penn,  and,  indeed, 
accounts  for  half  his  character.  The  Quakers  also 
were  coming  into  prominence  at  that  time,  and  they 
were  a  very  peculiar  and  important  sect,  of  whom  we 
shall  have  a  great  deal  to  say. 

♦  Pcpys's  Diary,  ed.  1893,  vol.  i.  pp.  319-322. 

34 


THE  TIMES 

In  striking  contrast  to  these  strange  sects  were  the 
Royalists,  who  stood^by  the  king  and  the  Church  of 
England,  with  its  moderate  ceremonies  and  ritual 
and  its  moderate  adoption  of  the  ideas  of  the  Refor- 
mation. Pleasure-loving  and  gay,  devoted  to  sports 
and  amusements,  dressing  fantastically,  as  it  would 
now  seem,  in  bright  colors,  with  long  hair  and 
pointed  beards,  and  all  the  more  devoted  to  pleas- 
ures, theatres,  oaths,  ribaldry,  and  licentiousness, 
because  these  things  were  under  the  ban  of  Puri- 
tanism. 

A  long  and  terrible  conflict  was  inevitable  be- 
tween these  elements.  How  to  combine  the  ancient 
freedom  with  the  necessities  of  highly-organized  gov- 
ernment and  have  both  liberty  and  government  at 
the  same  time  was  the  problem  by  whose  solution 
England  was  to  be  torn  and  distracted  for  the  rest 
of  the  century.  During  that  time,  which  in  effect 
covers  the  life  of  William  Penn,  '*  freedom,"  as  Ten- 
nyson has  expressed  it,  ''broadened  slowly  down  from 
precedent  to  precedent."  Slowly  hardly  describes 
this  movement.  It  was  very  slow  ;  often  stagnation 
and  sometimes  retrogression  ;  and  Penn's  relation 
to  this  movement,  which  is  still  a  movement,  is  the 
most  important  part  of  his  life's  history. 

Charles  I.,  who  succeeded  James  I.  in  1625,  car- 
ried the  royal  power  to  still  greater  heights.  He 
levied  taxes  and  imposts  as  he  pleased  without  au- 
thority of  law,  and  governed  for  many  years  without 
any  Parliament  at  all.  In  fact,  he  completely  eclipsed 
and  for  the  time  being  destroyed  the  ancient  liberties 
and  brought  royalty  to  its  climax  and  acme  of  power. 

35 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

In  the  same  way,  reacting  against  the  whole  spirit 
of  the  Reformation,  he  built  up  the  Established 
Church.  He  appointed  Laud  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, and  it  is  needless  to  tell  again  how  Laud 
became  the  terror  and  detestation  of  Puritans,  filling 
the  churches  with  images,  elaborating  ceremonies, 
and  inflicting  degrading  punishment  on  the  clergy 
who  inclined  to  Puritan  ways.  They  were  impris- 
oned, whipped,  had  their  ears  cut  off,  their  noses 
slit,  and  their  cheeks  branded  with  hot  irons.  We 
have  all  heard  the  story  of  the  Puritan  Pryne,  who 
was  stood  in  the  pillory,  lost  both  his  ears,  and  was 
imprisoned  for  life,  because  he  wrote  condemning 
the  balls,  theatres,  and  other  amusements  of  the 
court 

It  was  in  those  days  that  John  Hampden  sturdily 
refused  to  pay  the  ship-money,  which  was  an  old 
form  of  tax  by  which  the  seaports  had  supplied  the 
king  with  war- vessels.  Charles  attempted  to  com- 
pel the  inland  towns  to  contribute,  and  Hampden 
resisted,  although  the  suit  against  him  was  for  only 
twenty  shillings.  Penn,  as  we  shall  see,  in  later 
years  made  a  similar  stand  for  trial  by  jury. 

We  have  all  read  how  the  reaction  by  Charles  I. 
against  the  Reformation  brought  on  a  counter-reac- 
tion from  the  Reformation  itself;  for  while  despotism 
grew  among  the  Royalists  at  court,  wild  republican- 
ism spread  among  the  people.  Charles  I.  tried  to 
force  the  Church  of  England's  ritual  and  ceremonies, 
upon  the  Presbyterian  Scotch,  and  when  they  rose 
in  rebellion  and  mobbed  the  bishops  he  called  a 
Parliament  together   to    grant   him    an    army  with 

36 


THE  TIMES 

which  to  suppress  them.  There  had  been  no  Par- 
liament for  eleven  years  ;  and  this  new  one  was  filled 
with  men  of  the  Cromwell  and  Hampden  order. 
They  impeached  and  executed  Laud  and  Stafford. 
They  abolished  the  ecclesiastical  courts  which  had 
been  punishing  the  Puritans.  They  seized  violently 
on  all  the  rights  they  had  so  long  declared  they  pos- 
sessed. They  completely  reversed  the  condition  of 
affairs,  and  instead  of  the  king  ruling  without  a  Par- 
liament, Parliament  ruled  without  the  king.  He  was 
driven  from  London,  established  himself  at  York, 
and  declared  war  against  his  Parliament. 

In  this  way  began  the  great  civil  war  in  1642,  and 
when  Penn  was  born,  in  October,  1644,  four  famous 
battles  had  been  fought, — Edge  Hill,  Newbury, 
Nantwich,  and  Marston  Moor.  The  Puritan  cannon 
had  battered  down  many  an  ancient  castle  of  the  no- 
bility. The  king's  cause  was  lost,  and  the  success- 
ful Puritan  and  parliamentary  soldiers,  with  their 
extraordinary  biblical  names, — Praise  God  Bare- 
bones  and  Sergeant  Hew  Agag  in  Pieces  before  the 
Lord, — were  roaming  through  the  country,  smashing 
the  images  in  the  churches,  tearing  out  the  pipes  in 
the  organs,  breaking  the  stained-glass  windows,  and 
stabling  their  horses  in  cathedrals. 

But  although  civil  war  rages  in  a  country  the  or- 
dinary affairs  of  life  go  on.  The  children  play  hide- 
and-seek  and  lovers  kiss  their  sweethearts  as  in  the 
piping  times  of  peace.  We  must  not  let  the  general 
statements  and  perspective  of  history  deceive  us,  and 
we  are  assured  that  there  was  still  some  quiet  life  left 
in  England  when  we  read  of  that  country  gentleman 

37 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

who,  on  the  morning  of  the  battle  of  Edge  Hill,  was 
unconcernedly  strolling  with  his  dogs  between  the 
two  armies.  What  concern  had  the  war  with  him 
whose  life  as  lord  of  his  lands  was  self-contained  and 
complete  ? 

So  Penn,  we  may  infer,  was  born  as  peacefully  as 
children  usually  are  in  a  house  where  his  father  and 
mother  had  lodgings,  and  which  stood  in  London  in 
a  little  court  close  to  the  Tower  and  adjoining  what 
was  called  London  Wall.  His  father  had  gone  to 
sea,  and  soon  the  mother  and  her  son  left  London 
and  went  to  live  in  the  pretty  village  of  Wanstead, 
near  Essex,  and  there  Penn  passed  his  boyhood  and 
went  to  school. 


38 


Ill 


ADMIRAL    PENN 

Of  Penn's  mother  very  little  is  known,  except 
that  she  was  a  Dutch  woman,  the  daughter  of  John 
Jasper,  a  merchant  of  Rotterdam.  Her  son  has  left 
us  no  description  of  her.  There  is  no  portrait,  no 
anecdotes  or  sayings,  nothing  that  would  reveal  her 
character  ;  and  very  likely  she  was  a  plain,  mediocre 
person ;  for  if  she  had  been  otherwise,  something 
more  definite  about  her  would  have  come  down 
to  us. 

Penn  showed  few  if  any  Dutch  traits.  We  might 
expect  that  his  mother  would  have  given  him  some 
of  the  thrifty,  economical  qualities  of  her  nation. 
But  he  was  just  the  reverse,  a  lavish  spender  of 
money  rather  than  a  saver,  and  a  very  poor  business 
man,  so  far  as  regards  details  and  management 
His  ideas  of  such  subjects  were  grand,  general,  and 
sweeping  like  an  Englishman's,  in  advance  of  his 
time  and  greater  than  his  ability  could  accomplish. 
It  might  be  said  that  his  very  earnest  and  advanced 
opinions  on  the  subject  of  religious  liberty  were 
Dutch ;  but  he  might  have  gained  such  opinions 
from  the  Quakers,  who  supported  them  more  ar- 
dently than  any  other  sect. 

Pepys  describes  in  his  diary,  in  his  amusing  way, 
39 


S. 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

his  first  meeting  Lady  Penn  in  August,  1664,  and 
her  appearance. 

"  At  noon  dined  at  home  and  after  dinner  my  wife  and  I  to  Sir  W 
Pen's  to  see  his  lady,  the  first  time,  who  is  a  well  looked,  fat  short 
old  Dutch  woman,  but  one  that  hath  been  heretofore  pretty  handsome, 
and  is  now  very  discreet  and  I  believe  hath  more  wit  than  her  hus- 
band. Here  we  stayed  talking  a  good  while  and  very  well  pleased 
I  was  with  the  old  woman  at  first  visit."     (Vol.  iv.  p.  207.) 

In  another  passage  he  describes  Lady  Penn  and 
some  of  the  manners  of  the  times  when  people 
visited  one  another  in  their  bedrooms. 

"  So  home  vexed  and  going  to  my  Lady  Batten's  there  found  a 
g^eat  many  women  with  her  in  her  chamber  merry,  my  Lady  Pen 
and  her  daughter,  among  others  ;  where  my  Lady  Pen  flung  me 
down  upon  the  bed,  and  herself  and  others,  one  after  another,  upon 
me,  and  very  merry  we  were."     (Vol.  iv.  pp.  391,  392.) 

Later  on  Pepys  describes  her  as  "  mighty  homely 
and  looks  old."  She  was  sufficiently  good-looking, 
however,  for  him  to  make  love  to  her. 

She  and  her  husband  were,  no  doubt,  plain  people, 
and  when  they  married  were  in  moderate  circum- 
stances. The  biographers  describe  Penn's  birth- 
place near  the  Tower,  as  if  his  parents  occupied  the 
whole  house  ;  but  it  seems  they  only  lodged  there. 
Pepys,  who  for  many  years  associated  with  them 
very  intimately,  gives  us  an  account  of  their  begin- 
nings ;  but  he  obtained  it  from  a  certain  Mrs.  Turner, 
who  was  evidently  an  atrocious  gossip. 

"  She  [Mrs.  Turner]  says  that  he  was  a  pityfull  [fellow]  when  she 
first  knew  them  ;  that  his  lady  was  one  of  the  sourest,  dirty  women, 
that  ever  she  saw  ;  that  they  took  two  chambers,  one  over  another, 
for  themselves  and  child  in  Tower  Hill ;  that  for  many  years  together 

40 


ADMIRAL  PENN 

they  eat  more  meals  at  her  house  than  at  their  own  .  .  .  that  she 
brought  my  lady  who  then  was  a  dirty  slattern  with  her  stockings 
hanging  about  her  heels  so  that  afterwards  the  people  of  the  whole 
Hill  did  say  that  Mrs  Turner  had  made  Mrs  Pen  a  gentlewoman." 
(Vol.  vi.  p.  329.) 


But  after  making  full  allowances  for  Mrs.  Turner, 
we  can  readily  understand  that  there  was  a  founda- 
tion of  truth  for  what  she  said.  Admiral  Penn  also, 
though  of  a  respectable  family,  was  a  rough  man. 
He  was  brought  up  as  a  sailor,  and  at  the  time  he 
married  and  took  lodgings  near  the  Tower  he  had 
only  lately  come  out  of  the  merchant  service,  a  very 
rough  and  brutal  school.  Lord  Clarendon,  as  we 
shall  see,  described  him  as  a  man  who  was  always 
trying  to  put  on  the  appearance  of  good  breeding, 
and  not  always  with  success.  His  whole  career 
shows  that,  starting  with  almost  nothing,  he  had  a 
consuming  ambition  to  make  a  fortune  and  get  into 
good  society  without  being  over-scrupulous  as  to 
the  means  he  used. 

He  is  described  on  his  tomb  as  descended  from  the 
Penns  of  Penns-Lodge,  in  the  County  of  Wilts,  and 
also  from  the  Penns  of  Penn,  in  the  County  of  Bucks. 
The  family  had  apparently  lived  in  those  places  from 
time  immemorial,  and  that  is  all  we  know  about 
them  with  any  certainty.  One  of  the  ancestors  is 
said  to  have  been  a  monk  in  the  Abbey  of  Glaston- 
bury, in  Somersetshire.  When  the  monasteries  were 
dissolved  in  the  beginning  of  the  reformation  by 
Henry  VHL,  this  monk  was  granted  some  of  the 
Abbey  lands,  where  he  established  Penns-Lodge, 
married,   and  had  several  children.     It  is  possible 

41 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

that  from  this  man  William  Penn  may  have  inherited 
his  strong  religious  inclinations. 

Several  traditions  attempt  to  trace  back  still  far- 
ther the  family  history.  Penn  himself  believed  that 
he  was  of  Welsh  origin  ;  and  according  to  Watson's 
"Annals  of  Pennsylvania,"  *  the  Rev.  Hugh  David, 
who  went  to  Philadelphia  in  1700,  relates  that  he 
and  Penn  were  on  the  ship  together,  when  Penn, 
seeing  a  goat  gnawing  a  broom,  said, — 

♦•  Hugh,  dost  thou  observe  that  goat  ?  See  what  hardy  fellows  the 
Welsh  are,  how  they  can  feed  on  a  broom.  However,  Hugh,  I  am 
a  Welshman  myself,  and  will  relate  by  how  strange  a  circumstance 
our  family  lost  their  name.  My  grandfather  (or  great-grrandfather) 
was  named  John  Tudor,  and  lived  upon  the  top  of  a  hill  or  mountain 
in  Wales ;  he  was  generally  called  John  Penmunrith  which  in  Eng- 
lish is  *  John  on  the  top  of  a  hill.'  He  removed  from  Wales  into 
Ireland,  where  he  acquired  considerable  property.  Upon  his  return 
into  his  own  country,  he  was  addressed  by  his  old  friends  and  neigh- 
bors, not  in  the  former  way,  but  by  the  name  of  Mr.  Penn.  He 
afterwards  removed  to  London,  where  he  continued  to  reside  under 
the  name  of  John  Penn,  which  has  since  been  the  family  name." 

Some  of  the  details  of  this  statement  are  not  con- 
sistent with  the  rest  of  the  family  history ;  and  in  a 
letter  written  by  Penn's  son,  John  Penn,  to  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Smith,  of  Philadelphia,  still  another  origin  is 
suggested.  It  seems  some  woman  in  France  named 
De  Penn,  or  possibly  De  la  Penne,  had  written  to 
the  Penns  in  England,  claiming  relationship  with 
them.  Some  of  her  family,  she  said,  had  gone  to 
England  with  William  the  Conqueror.  This  origin, 
^  seeming  to  be  more  flattering  to  the  family  pride, 

has  been  adopted  by  some  writers  ;  but  there  is  no 

*  Vol.  1.  p.  119. 
4« 


ADMIRAL  PENN 

proof  of  its  correctness.  Of  the  two,  the  Welsh 
origin  is  the  more  likely  to  be  the  true  one. 

But  for  our  purpose  we  need  go  no  farther  back 
than  Giles  Penn,  the  grandfather  of  William  Penn. 
The  family  appear  to  have  lived  in  Bucks  and  Wilts 
as  respectable  people  of  some  means,  belonging  to 
the  country  gentry.  But  we  must  not  think  of  the 
country  gentleman  of  that  time  as  anything  like 
what  he  has  been  during  the  last  century  in  England. 
He  was  a  very  rough  farmer,  leading  a  life  of  rude 
plenty,  not  on  a  country-seat  with  trim  lawns  and 
gardens,  but  on  rugged  acres,  with  his  cattle  and 
chickens  of  first  importance,  and  allowed  to  wander 
under  his  bedroom  windows.  Instead  of  the  excel- 
lent education,  foreign  travel,  and  familiarity  with 
London  for  a  few  months  every  year,  which  charac- 
terize the  squire  of  modern  times,  he  seldom  saw 
London  more  than  once  in  his  lifetime,  he  had 
never  travelled,  and  his  education  was  usually  of 
the  poorest.  He  was  an  aristocrat  only  because  he 
held  the  political  power  in  his  county,  presiding  as 
a  magistrate,  and  commanding  the  trainbands.  In 
other  respects  his  manners  as  well  as  his  life  were 
rude  and  boorish. 

Whatever  position  the  Penn  family  had  they  seem 
to  have  been  unable  to  support  towards  the  close  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  for  the  ancestral  farm,  Penns- 
Lodge,  passed  out  of  their  hands,  and  we  find  that 
Giles  Penn  took  to  a  seafaring  life. 

Commerce  and  shipping  gave  good  opportunities 
in  those  days  for  making  a  fortune ;  and  Giles  Penn 
no  doubt  was  anxious  to  restore  his  family  position, 

43 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

and  even  to  make  it  better  than  it  had  been.  But 
the  greatest  opportunities  for  fortune-making  came 
to  the  men  who  were  courtiers,  office-holders,  or 
officers  in  the  army  or  navy.  The  salaries  of  the 
courtiers  who  held  office  seem  very  large  for  the 
times ;  but  the  perquisites  and  opportunities  under 
the  system  of  corruption  which  prevailed  were 
enormous.  The  population  of  England  was  then 
considerably  less  than  five  million,  and  the  popula- 
tion of  London  not  half  a  million  ;  but  the  office  of 
the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  for  example,  was 
supposed  to  be  worth  forty  thousand  pounds  a  year  ; 
and  from  this  high  official  down  to  the  lowest  clerk, 
tide-waiter,  or  gauger,  the  same  methods  of  gross 
corruption  gave  opportunities  which  varied  only  in 
degree. 

Next  in  importance  after  the  court  officials  for 
their  opportunities  for  making  money  were  the  naval 
officers.  Corruption  and  peculation  were,  if  any- 
thing, more  rife  in  the  navy  than  at  court ;  and  war- 
vessels  were  constantly  employed  to  carry  from  port 
to  port  bullion  and  other  valuable  cargoes  which 
merchants  dared  not  trust  to  ordinary  vessels.  In 
this  service  naval  captains,  being  in  a  position  to 
demand  large  rewards,  often  made  several  thousand 
pounds  by  a  short  voyage. 

The  merchant  marine  was  closely  connected  with 
the  navy,  for  merchant  ships  were  usually  armed, 
carrying  sometimes  thirty  or  forty  guns,  and  were 
often  taken  into  the  navy  in  large  numbers  to  assist 
the  public  war-vessels.  A  training  in  the  merchant 
service  gave   opportunities   for  entering  the  navy. 

44 


ADMIRAL  PENN 

Giles  Penn  secured  the  release  of  some  captives  held 
by  the  Selee  rovers,  as  the  pirates  of  Algiers  were 
then  called,  and  for  this  service  he  was  to  have  been 
made  vice-admiral  of  a  fleet  to  be  fitted  out  to 
punish  the  Algerines.  He  never  received  his  com- 
mission, however ;  but  instead  of  it  was  made  consul 
to  the  Mediterranean  ports. 

He  failed  to  enjoy  the  lucrative  opportunities  of 
the  navy,  but  he  was  determined  that  his  son,  the 
father  of  William  Penn,  should  enjoy  all  that  the 
navy  had  to  bestow.  He  trained  the  boy  most 
carefully  on  his  own  ship  in  the  practice  and  theory 
of  navigation,  and  the  youth  entered  the  navy  of 
King  Charles  I.  before  he  was  twenty,  and  was  at 
once  given  the  rank  of  lieutenant.  When  he  was 
twenty-one  years  old,  in  1642,  he  was  made  a  cap- 
tain. He  almost  immediately  married,  and  within  a 
little  over  a  year  his  famous  son  William  was  born. 

So  William  Penn  was  the  son  of  a  very  young 
man,  almost  a  boy,  but  in  command  of  the  **  Fel- 
lowship" of  twenty-eight  guns,  with  orders  to  join 
the  fleet  of  Admiral  Swanley  in  the  Irish  seas.  Two 
years  afterwards  the  father  was  made  Rear-Admiral 
of  Ireland  ;  in  1646  he  was  given  command  of  a 
squadron  as  Vice-Admiral  of  Ireland,  and  by  the 
time  he  was  thirty-one  he  was  Vice-Admiral  of 
England. 

This  seems  nowadays  most  ridiculously  rapid  ad- 
vancement, and  in  lives  of  the  admiral  and  also  in 
lives  of  William  Penn  it  is  described  in  a  way  to 
give  the  impression  that  this  youth  must  have  been 
a  naval  prodigy.     But  in  the  condition  of  affairs  at 

45 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

that  time  a  man  rose  in  the  navy  very  rapidly,  in- 
deed almost  instantly,  under  certain  circumstances, 
so  that  such  a  thing  as  a  boy  admiral  was  not  al- 
together impossible. 

Clowes,  in  his  "History  of  the  British  Navy,"  has 
described  what  a  man-of-war  was  in  those  days.  It 
was  a  beautiful  creation  of  art,  carved  from  stem  to 
stem  with  a  richness  of  curves  and  tracery  which  is 
the  wonder  and  despair  of  modern  eyes.  It  was 
more  beautiful,  indeed,  than  serviceable,  and  it  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  within  it  was  very  often,  so 
far  as  the  crew  were  concerned,  a  floating  hell  and 
pest-house. 

The  sailors  were  wretched  criminal  creatures,  col- 
lected largely  by  the  press-gang,  so  ill  paid  and  so 
seldom  paid  that  they  were  continually  in  mutiny, 
and  so  ill  fed  that  they  were  continually  robbing  and 
marauding  for  food.  A  mob  of  them  once  threat- 
ened to  besiege  the  court  at  White  Hall,  and  actu- 
ally seized  the  Guild  Hall  at  Plymouth.  The  sick 
were  turned  ashore  starving,  and  the  rapid  mortality 
on  many  of  the  ships  from  disease  and  dirt  was 
frightful.  They  were  punished  for  bad  conduct  by 
ducking,  keel-hauling,  tongue-scraping,  flogging, 
dragging  through  the  water  at  the  stern  of  a  row- 
boat,  tying  up  with  weights  about  the  neck,  and  a 
sailor  that  slept  four  times  on  watch  was  lashed  to 
the  bowsprit  and  left  there  to  starve  to  death  or 
drown. 

The  officers  who  commanded  them  were  more 
fortunate,  and  led  a  sumptuous,  jovial  life.  Pepys, 
when  with  the  fleet  that  brought  back  Charles  II. 

46 


ADMIRAL  PENN 

from  Holland,  describes  how  they  spent  the  after- 
noon in  playing  nine-pins  on  the  quarter  deck,  with 
a  grand  dinner  in  the  evening,  followed  by  music 
and  heavy  drinking,  which  sent  every  one  to  bed 
quite  mellow.  The  captains  and  officers  had  their 
mistresses  on  board,  or,  as  some  accounts  put  it, 
their  harems,  and  there  were  also  abandoned  women 
allowed  among  the  crew. 

Many  of  the  officers  in  highest  command,  the  cap- 
tains and  admirals,  were  landsmen  without  special 
training,  and  they  bought  and  sold  their  commands 
and  indulged  in  unlimited  corruption  and  peculation. 

"  The  dock-yard  officials  robbed  wholesale ;  the  captains  turned 
their  ships  into  cargo-boats  for  their  own  profit,  and  conspired  with 
the  pursers  to  forge  and  sell  seamen's  tickets ;  carpenters,  gunners, 
boatswains,  and  pursers  cheated  and  swindled  ;  imaginary  men  were 
borne  in  nearly  all  ships,  and  their  wages  were  shared  among  the 
officers;  and  government  store-houses  were  converted  into  surrep- 
titious residences  for  government  servants  and  their  families." 
(Clowes's  "Royal  Navy,"  vol.  ii.  p.  19.) 

Military  men  entered  the  navy  as  freely  as  lands- 
men. At  that  time,  and,  indeed,  in  all  the  pre- 
vious history  of  the  world,  there  was  no  complete 
separation  between  the  naval  and  military  depart- 
ments of  a  nation.  In  ancient  times  Pompey  and 
Agrippa  commanded  forces  both  on  sea  and  land. 
Lord  Howard,  who  commanded  the  British  fleet 
that  defeated  the  Spanish  Armada,  was  a  lands- 
man. Sir  Walter  Raleigh  was  both  an  admiral  and 
a  general. 

In  Penn's  time  the  best  admirals,  except  himself, 
were  landsmen,  and  naval  captains  were  often  spoken 

47 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

of  as  colonels.  Blake,  who  was  the  greatest  of  them, 
and  who,  indeed,  is  usually  considered  one  of  the 
two  or  three  greatest  admirals  that  Britain  has  pro- 
duced, was  a  soldier,  and  never  went  to  sea  until  he 
was  fifty  years  old.  Prince  Rupert,  who  commanded 
the  cavalry  of  Charles  I.,  also  commanded  a  fleet. 
Dean  and  Montagu,  of  that  time,  were  also  military 
men.  General  Monk,  who  restored  Charles  II.  to 
the  throne,  also  took  his  turn  on  the  sea.  It  was  he 
who,  when  he  wanted  his  ship  turned  to  the  port 
side,  aroused  the  amusement  of  his  crew  by  giving 
the  order,  "  Left  wheel !" 

The  reason  why  military  men  succeeded  so  well 
in  command  of  fleets  would  seem  to  be  that  the 
navy  had  few,  if  any,  regularly  trained  officers  who 
could  be  raised  to  positions  of  large  responsibility. 
Those  who  had  a  knowledge  of  seamanship  were 
mostly  mere  tarpaulins,  with  neither  education,  man- 
ners, nor  honesty.  They  had  risen  from  the  forecastle, 
and  many  of  them  had  been  captains  of  privateers, 
an  occupation  which  did  not  improve  their  morals. 
There  were  some  exceptions  to  this  rule.  Sir  Chris- 
topher Mings,  Sir  John  Narborough,  and  Sir  Clouds- 
ley  Shovel  had  begun  life  as  cabin-boys.  But  for 
the  most  part  men  of  this  sort  were  valuable  only 
for  certain  purposes  within  a  limited  sphere.  They 
were  incapable  of  forming  comprehensive  plans  or 
dealing  with  complicated  situations,  and  they  were 
compelled  to  yield  the  important  commands  to  mili- 
tary men  of  wider  attainments  and  more  general 
education  and  experience. 

Penn  rose  to  be  an  admiral  at  twenty-three  for  the 
48 


ADMIRAL  PENN 

reason  apparently  that  he  was  a  rare  instance  of  a 
man  with  practical  sea  experience,  who  also  had 
enough  education  and  breadth  of  mind  to  take  the 
responsibility  of  a  large  command.  At  heart  he  was 
a  Royalist  and  preferred  the  king's  cause  ;  but  his 
rapid  promotions  were  received  from  Parliament  and 
Cromwell.  The  army  had  gone  over  to  the  king 
and  the  navy  had  taken  the  side  of  Parliament. 
The  crews,  which  had  been  starved  and  tortured 
under  the  king,  thought  they  saw  brighter  prospects 
in  the  popular  cause.  They  went  over  in  large  num- 
bers, and  Penn  went  with  them.  He  was  deter- 
mined to  rise  in  his  profession,  whatever  flag  he 
fought  under,  and  he  rightly  judged  that  the  popu- 
lar and  parliamentary  cause  would,  for  a  time  at 
least,  be  successful.  He  commanded  the  squadron 
that  met  with  such  ill  success  in  its  operations  on 
the  Irish  coast ;  but  the  failure  was  through  no  fault 
of  his.  He  distinguished  himself,  and  the  Parlia- 
ment voted  him  their  thanks  for  his  ''courage  and 
fidelity." 

Soon  afterwards  he  was  put  under  arrest,  appar- 
ently because  he  was  suspected  of  having,  as,  indeed, 
he  had,  a  secret  interest  in  the  king's  cause.  He  was 
released,  however,  soon  promoted,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  he  commanded  the  squadron  which  went 
in  pursuit  of  the  ships  of  that  gallant  landsman, 
Prince  Rupert.  But,  although  Penn  followed  him 
through  the  English  Channel  and  even  into  the 
Mediterranean,  the  cavalryman  eluded  the  trained 
sailor  on  his  own  element. 

Penn's  greatest  service  now  followed  in  the  naval 
4  49 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

war  which  Cromwell  waged  for  two  years  with  Hol- 
land. The  Dutch,  thinking  they  could  wrest  from 
the  English  the  empire  of  the  sea,  refused  to  follow 
the  ancient  custom  by  which  all  ships  had  for  ages 
saluted  the  British  flag.  This  honor  of  the  flag  was 
originally  a  mere  courtesy  in  recognition  of  the  pro- 
tection English  ships  had  always  given  to  the  traders 
of  all  nations.  But  British  men-of-war  had  now  for  a 
long  time  demanded  it  as  a  right  and  an  insignia  of 
their  country's  supremacy  on  the  ocean.  It  was  under 
this  same  principle  of  supremacy  that  they  claimed 
the  right  of  search  which  brought  on  the  war  of  the 
United  States  with  England  in  1 8 1 2. 

In  the  three  terrible  battles  of  the  Dutch  war,  in 
which  more  than  a  hundred  ships  were  engaged  on 
each  side,  Penn  greatly  distinguished  himself  In  the 
second  battle  the  Dutch  Admiral  Tromp  grappled 
Penn's  ship,  and  boarded  him.  Penn's  sailors  re- 
pulsed the  attack,  followed  the  enemy  on  to  their 
own  ship,  and  drove  them  below  the  hatches,  where, 
with  reckless  courage,  they  exploded  part  of  their 
powder,  blowing  their  decks,  with  the  English  on 
them,  into  the  air.  The  survivors  of  Penn's  crew 
rushed  back  into  the  Dutch  ship,  and  Tromp  would 
have  been  taken  if  two  other  admirals — De  Ruyter 
and  De  Witte  had  not  come  to  his  rescue.  For  his 
services  in  this  battle  Penn  was  given  the  rank  of 
general-at-sea. 

The  next  year,  1654,  he  was  sent  by  Cromwell  in 
command  of  a  fleet,  accompanied  by  an  army  under 
General  Venables,  to  capture  as  many  as  possible  of 
the  Spanish  West  Indian  islands.    And  now  a  strange 

50 


ADMIRAL  PENN 

thing  happened,  which  disclosed  Admiral  Penn's 
character  and  had  a  most  important  bearing  on  the 
career  of  his  son.  Both  the  admiral  and  General 
Venables  secretly  sent  word  to  Charles  II.,  then 
living  in  exile  on  the  continent,  that  if  he  wished  it, 
they  would  turn  over  the  fleet  and  army  to  him. 

Charles  thanked  them,  but  declined  their  assistance, 
because  he  had  no  place  to  keep  either  a  fleet  or  an 
army.  But  he  would,  he  said,  remember  their  offer; 
and  neither  he  nor  his  brother  and  successor,  James 
XL,  ever  forgot  it.  The  fortune  of  Admiral  Penn 
and  of  his  son  William  was  made  by  this  act 
Through  the  royal  favor  which  flowed  from  it  for 
the  next  fifty  years  William  Penn  delivered  Quakers 
from  prison,  led  the  life  of  a  successful  courtier,  and 
received  the  grant  of  the  vast  territory  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. Yet  it  was  an  act  which  cannot  be  regarded 
now  in  any  other  light  than  that  of  dishonorable 
treachery. 

Cromwell  and  the  parliamentary  party  had  made 
Admiral  Penn  all  that  he  was,  had  given  him  his  rapid 
promotion,  his  estates  in  Ireland,  and  raised  him  to 
the  important  command  which  made  his  offer  of  the 
fleet  seem  a  thing  of  great  value  in  the  eyes  of 
Charles  II.  and  his  brother.  It  was  common  enough 
all  through  the  civil  war  for  men  in  the  employ  of 
Parliament  to  correspond  secretly  with  the  exiled 
king.  Some  of  these  were  sincerely  devoted  to  the 
king's  cause  ;  but  most  of  them  were  merely  put- 
ting out  an  anchor  to  windward  in  case  the  king 
should  return.  Penn  went  farther  than  any  of  them, 
and  overstepped  all  bounds.      He,   no  doubt,  saw 

51 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

that  the  parliamentary  cause  was  gradually  waning, 
and  he  was  determined  that  his  anchor  to  windward 
should  be  the  largest  and  most  powerful  of  all. 

At  that  time,  however,  professional  honor  was  un- 
known in  the  British  navy,  and,  brought  up  in  the 
midst  of  all  kinds  of  official  corruption  and  the  moral 
looseness  of  the  civil  war,  it  is  not  likely  that  Ad- 
miral Penn's  conscience  was  seriously  troubled. 
Anxious  he  must  have  been  for  the  outcome  of 
such  a  daring  and  dangerous  move  ;  but  the  end 
showed  that  he  had  calculated  with  the  most  perfect 
shrewdness  and  cunning.* 

It  has  been  supposed  that  Cromwell  knew  at 
once  of  this  offer  of  the  fleet  and  army  to  Charles ; 
but,  cool  and  sagacious  as  he  always  was,  he  said 
nothing,  made  no  move,  and  doubtless  laughed  with 
grim  Puritan  humor  when  he  heard  that  the  offer 
had  been  rejected.  This  is  highly  probable  ;  for  he 
spent,  it  is  said,  sixty  thousand  pounds  annually  in 
maintaining  spies  at  the  court  of  Charles,  and  if  he 
did  not  know  of  the  offer  at  once,  it  seems  quite 
certain  that  he  soon  heard  of  it  He  knew,  no 
doubt,  that  the  offer  must  necessarily  be  refused, 
and  that  Penn  was  merely  placing  his  great  anchor 
to  windward  for  future  contingencies.    So  he  allowed 

♦  His  son  William,  with  amusing  vagueness,  has  attempted  to  ex- 
plain his  father's  double  service  to  both  Cromwell  and  the  king: 
"  *Tis  true,  he  was  actually  engaged  both  under  the  Parliament  and 
king,  but  not  as  an  actor  in  our  late  domestic  troubles ;  his  compass 
always  steering  him  to  eye  a  national  concern  and  not  intestine  wars, 
and  therefore  not  so  aptly  theirs  [the  Parliament's]  in  a  way  of 
opposition  as  the  nation's." — Granville  Penn's  Memorials  of  Sir  Wil- 
liam Penn,  vol.  ii.  p.  569. 

52 


ADMIRAL  PENN 

the  expedition  to  go  on  as  it  had  been  planned, 
well  knowing  that  Penn's  professional  pride  would 
compel  him  to  do  his  best. 

The  expedition  failed  utterly  against  San  Domingo, 
but  not  from  any  fault  of  Penn,  for  the  army,  which 
was  hopelessly  inefficient,  alone  took  part  in  the 
attack.  In  the  attack  on  Jamaica  both  army  and 
fleet  acted  together ;  the  island  fell  into  their  hands 
without  a  struggle,  and  is  still  a  British  colony. 

As  soon  as  Admiral  Penn  returned  to  England  he 
was  committed  to  the  Tower  on  the  charge  of  com- 
ing home  without  leave.  But  that  was  evidently  not 
the  real  reason.  Cromwell  shrewdly  judged  that  he 
had  obtained  from  him  all  the  service  that  was  pos- 
sible or  safe.  He  was  ordered  to  confess  his  fault, 
surrender  his  commission  as  general-at-sea,  and 
make  his  submission  to  the  Lord  Protector.  When 
he  had  done  all  this,  he  was  set  free  both  from  prison 
and  from  the  navy.  He  was  rendered  as  harmless 
as  possible  short  of  putting  him  to  death  or  im- 
prisoning him  for  life,  which  would  not  have  been 
politic.  He  retired  to  Ireland  to  the  estates  that 
had  been  given  him  for  his  services  by  Cromwell, 
and  there  waited  and  in  a  mild  way  plotted  for  the 
restoration  of  the  king. 

On  the  eve  of  the  restoration  he  was  summoned 
from  his  retirement  to  represent  in  Parliament  the 
town  of  Weymouth,  and  he  hurried  to  Holland  to 
be  the  bearer  of  the  glad  tidings  to  Charles.  He 
was  immediately  knighted,  made  commissioner  of 
admiralty,  and  governor  of  Kinsale.  His  Irish  es- 
tates were  given  back  to  their  royalist  owner  from 

53 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

whom  Cromwell  had  taken  them,  and  in  place  of 
them  other  estates  in  Ireland  were  given  to  Penn. 

He  had  achieved  a  large  part  of  his  ambition, 
which  was  to  make  a  fortune,  become  a  courtier, 
associate  with  noblemen,  and  perhaps  become  one. 
Henceforth  his  life  was  passed  in  the  court  circles, 
for  that  alone  could  satisfy  him.  He  was  at  heart 
an  intensely  ardent  Royalist  and  aristocrat,  and  al- 
though he  had  aided  the  Cromwellian  and  parlia- 
mentary cause,  he  had  in  the  end  used  it  most 
cleverly  to  advance  his  own  royalist  interests. 

The  king  and  his  brother  James,  Duke  of  York, 
bound  Penn  closely  to  themselves.  The  duke  be- 
came Lord  High  Admiral,  and  took  Penn  into  his 
personal  service.  In  the  campaign  against  the 
Dutch,  in  1665,  Penn,  with  the  title  great  captain 
commander,  was  on  the  duke's  ship  as  his  confiden- 
tial adviser,  for  the  duke  was  a  landsman  ;  and  in 
this  relation,  in  which  he  practically  commanded  the 
fleet,  Penn  took  part  in  the  famous  and  decisive 
battle  against  the  Dutch  admiral,  Opdam. 

This  was  the  last  of  Penn's  sea  service.  He  was 
only  about  forty-five  years  old  ;  but  his  health  was 
already  broken  by  severe  attacks  of  the  gout,  and 
he  died  in  1670,  before  he  was  fifty.  He  was  rather 
young  to  have  the  gout  so  badly  ;  but  he  was,  it 
seems,  a  heavy  drinker,  and  probably  also  a  heavy 
eater  after  the  manner  of  those  times. 

"  In  the  evening  at  Sir  W.  Pen*s  with  my  wife  at  supper :  he  in  a 
mad  ridiculous,  drunken  humour ;  and  it  seems  there  have  been  some 
late  distances  between  his  lady  and  him  as  my  [wife]  tells  me." 
(••  Pepys  Diary,"  vol.  v.  p.  434.) 

54 


«       >        ■» 


ADMIRAL    PKNN 


ADMIRAL  PENN 

"  Sir  W  Pen  half  drunk  did  talk  like  a  fool  and  vex  his  wife." 
(Vol.  vi.  pp.  330,331.) 

The  portrait  of  Admiral  Penn  at  the  age  of  forty- 
five,  painted  by  Sir  Peter  Lely,  is  a  most  inter- 
esting picture,  and  shows  a  handsome,  but  not  a 
dissipated  face.  The  Historical  Society  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, however,  possesses  a  portrait  of  him,  of  un- 
certain authenticity,  with  a  large,  bloated  nose,  fully 
justifying  Pepys's  description. 

The  best  that  Pepys  has  to  say  of  him  is  that  he 
was  "a  very  sociable  man  and  an  able  man  and 
very  cunning."  But  his  rise,  Pepys  assures  us,  was 
due  to  large  bribes  and  all  sorts  of  irregular  prac- 
tices. By  this  means  he  became  general-at-sea 
under  Cromwell,  and  by  the  same  means  got  himself 
out  of  the  Tower  in  Cromwell's  time.  In  the  civil 
war,  Pepys  says,  he  was  a  devilish  plunderer,  and 
by  that  means  got  his  estates  in  Ireland.  In  fact, 
Pepys  is  never  tired  of  calling  him  a  false  fellow 
and  a  rogue,  and  describing  the  ^*  sluttishness  of  his 
family."  * 

It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  Pepys 
was  also  enriching  himself  while  in  the  service  of  the 
Admiralty  by  every  opportunity ;  and  no  doubt 
Penn  interfered  with  many  of  his  schemes.  Pepys's 
hatred  of  him,  and  yet  continual  association  with 
him,  is  amusing  at  times,  especially  when  Pepys  is 
disgusted  at  the  bad  dinners  he  gets  at  Penn's  house 
and  complains  that  when  he  gives  Penn  a  dinner  the 
stupid  sailor  is   unable  to  appreciate  it.      Pepys's 

*  Vol.  vi.  pp.  330,  331  ;  vol.  vii.  p.  100. 
55 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

morals  were  bad,  and  he  was  intriguing  with  the 
wives  of  many  of  his  acquaintances.  In  weighing 
what  he  says,  we  must  remember  that  by  his  own 
statement  he  attempted  familiarities  with  Admiral 
Penn's  wife,  and  also  had  designs  on  his  daughter. 

Lord  Clarendon,  who  knew  Penn  well,  has  also 
left  us  a  description  of  him  : 

"  Penn,  who  had  much  the  worse  understanding,  had  a  great  mind 
to  appear  better  bred  and  to  speak  like  a  gentleman ;  he  had  got 
many  good  words  which  he  used  at  adventure ;  he  was  a  formal 
man  and  spake  very  leisurely,  but  much,  and  left  the  matter  more 
intricate  and  perplexed  than  he  found  it."     (Vol.  ii.  p.  354.) 

But  I  cannot  give  the  whole  life  of  the  admiral 
I  have  dwelt  on  many  of  the  details  of  it  principally 
to  show  what  a  strong  hold  he  secured  on  the  affec- 
tions of  Charles  II.  and  the  Duke  of  York,  for  this 
was  the  foundation  of  his  son's  career.  After  his 
service  against  Opdam  the  duke  wanted  him  to 
take  another  command  at  sea ;  and  when  Penn  de- 
clined, insisted  on  his  acceptance.  But  military 
men  were  now  in  control  of  the  navy,  and  they  were 
very  jealous  of  regular  sailors  like  Penn.  They  had 
him  impeached  for  helping  himself  too  liberally  to 
the  silk,  spices,  and  jewels  on  board  some  rich  prizes 
that  had  been  taken  from  the  Dutch.  He  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  guilty ;  but  the  impeachment 
proceedings  effectually  blocked  his  appointment  until 
it  was  too  late  for  him  to  go  to  sea,  and  then  the 
prosecution  was  dropped. 

The  king,  anxious  to  reward  him,  was  about  to 
raise  him  to  the  peerage  under  the  title  of  Viscount 
Weymouth ;  but  his  son  William  had  by  this  time 

56 


ADMIRAL  PENN 

become  a  Quaker  and  was  protesting  loudly  against 
all  titles  as  vanities  of  the  flesh.  It  seemed  ridicu- 
lous to  give  a  title  that  would  descend  to  such  a 
strange  fanatic,  and  the  king's  good  intentions  were 
checked.  So  the  admiral,  through  his  nuisance  of  a 
son,  failed  to  attain  what  was,  no  doubt,  one  of  the 
chief  objects  of  his  ambition.  But  he  had  picked  up 
in  one  way  or  another  a  considerable  fortune,  which 
he  left  to  the  deluded  boy ;  and,  most  important  of 
all,  he  left  him  the  extreme  good-will  and  affection 
of  Charles  II.  and  the  Duke  of  York,  who  became 
James  II. 

He  had  lent  to  the  crown  various  sums  of  money, 
and  these  at  the  time  of  his  death,  with  the  arrears  of 
his  pay,  amounted  to  over  twelve  thousand  pounds. 
Eleven  years  afterwards  the  debt,  with  interest,  had 
grown  to  sixteen  thousand  pounds,  and  was  liquidated 
by  the  grant  to  the  son  of  the  province  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. 


57 


IV 

EARLY   INFLUENCES 

During  all  of  Admiral  Penn's  service  for  Crom- 
well and  the  Parliament  his  son  William  remained 
with  his  Dutch  mother  at  Wanstead,  living  quietly 
while  the  battle  of  Naseby  was  fought  and  Bridge- 
water  and  Bristol  stormed,  and  the  unfortunate  King 
Charles  beheaded  in  1649.  Penn  was  only  five 
years  old  in  1649,  ^^id  up  to  that  time  public  events 
could  not  have  made  much  impression  on  him.  The 
foundation  of  his  opinions  inherited  from  his  father 
was  royalist,  and  his  close  relations  with  King 
Charles  and  King  James  afterwards  made  him  still 
more  of  a  Royalist  But  the  principles  of  the  oppo- 
site party — the  principles  of  liberty  and  free  govern- 
ment— also  made  a  deep  impression  on  him,  and  he 
was,  as  we  shall  see,  a  curious  mixture  of  the  two 
political  parties.  His  liberal  ideas  seem  to  have 
been  imbibed  in  his  early  youth  at  Wanstead,  when 
his  father  was  away  for  years  and  never  saw  him. 
He  heard  a  great  deal  there  about  civil  liberty  and 
the  rights  of  Parliament,  and  during  the  subsequent 
six  or  seven  years,  as  he  became  more  impression- 
able, he  continued  to  hear  the  same  principles. 

A  new  era  began  with  the  death  of  King  Charles. 
In  fact,  a  new  England  was  created.     Parliamentary 

58 


EARLY   INFLUENCES 

government  and  national  consent,  as  against  mon- 
archy and  despotism,  got  a  surer  foothold  than  they 
had  ever  had  before,  a  foothold  which  they  strug- 
gled to  keep  until  the  boy  William  Penn  lived  to  see 
them,  much  to  his  surprise,  securely  and  perma^ 
nently  established  by  William  IIL  in  1688. 

He  lived  at  Wanstead  until  he  was  twelve  years 
old,  and  during  that  time  saw  little  or  nothing  of  his 
father  the  admiral,  who  sailed  to  join  the  fleet  on  the 
Irish  coast  two  days  before  his  son  was  born,  and 
after  that  was  in  continuous  sea  employment  until 
he  returned  from  the  taking  of  Jamaica. 

The  boy  went  to  school  at  Wanstead,  and  seems 
to  have  received  the  regular  training  in  Latin, 
Greek,  and  mathematics  which  was  given  at  that 
time.  Wanstead  and  the  village  of  Chigwell  near  by 
were  pretty  places,  with  all  the  advantages  of  coun- 
try life  and  amusements.  Penn  was  afterwards  at 
college  fond  of  athletic  sports,  and  he  doubtless 
laid  the  foundation  for  this  taste  in  the  fields  and 
woods  of  his  country  home. 

This  same  country  neighborhood  was  intensely 
Puritan,  and  this  seems  to  have  had  an  important 
influence  on  the  future  Quaker  leader.  It  no  doubt 
modified  his  inherited  royalist  opinions,  and  it  is  not 
unlikely  that  during  those  twelve  years  he  uncon- 
sciously received  from  his  surroundings  that  tinge 
of  thought  which  led  to  Quakerism.  Puritans  were 
in  the  habit  of  discussing  religious  subjects  day  and 
night;  and  the  burden  of  all  that  the  boy  heard 
would  be  rejection  of  forms  and  ceremonies  and 
more  or  less  reliance   on  the  individual  judgment 

59 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

The  Quakers  carried  individual  judgment  farther 
than  the  Puritans,  but  the  Puritan  state  of  mind  was 
a  natural  foundation  for  Quakerism.  There  was  no 
sect  that  the  Puritans  despised  so  much  as  they  de- 
spised the  Quakers;  but,  unconsciously,  they  had 
made  easier  the  path  to  Quakerism. 

We  are  confirmed  in  this  view  by  learning  that, 
when  he  was  only  eleven  years  old,  Penn,  when  alone 
one  day  in  his  room,  had  a  religious  experience,  as 
it  is  called. 

"  He  was  suddenly  surprised  with  an  inward  comfort ;  and,  as  he 
thought,  an  external  glory  in  the  room,  which  gave  rise  to  religious 
emotions,  during  which  he  had  the  strongest  conviction  of  the  being 
of  God,  and  that  the  soul  of  man  was  capable  of  enjoying  communi- 
cation with  Him.  He  believed  also  that  the  seal  of  divinity  had 
been  put  upon  him  at  this  moment,  or  that  he  had  been  awakened  or 
called  upon  to  a  holy  life." 

The  teaching  of  the  Church  of  England  at  that 
time  would  not  have  led  a  boy  to  such  an  experi- 
ence ;  but  emotionalism  of  that  sort  was  an  almost 
every-day  experience  among  the  Puritans,  and  he 
had,  no  doubt,  heard  many  edifying  accounts  of  it. 
Indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  find  in  Penn  during  his 
youth  any  trace  of  Church  of  England  teaching. 
His  bent  was  radically  the  other  way ;  and  it  is 
highly  probable  that  it  was  started  by  the  influences 
at  Wanstead. 

This  was  unfortunate  for  his  father,  the  admiral, 
whose  aristocratic  tastes  and  ambition  for  a  peerage 
led  him  to  see  nothing  but  folly  in  any  deviation 
from  the  religion  of  the  crown  and  the  court.  The 
great  object  of  his  Hfe  had  been  to  restore  the  for- 

60 


EARLY   INFLUENCES 

tunes  of  his  family  and  advance  their  position  ;  and 
he  could  not  see  a  way  to  this  end  for  his  son 
through  Puritan  cant  and  emotionalism.  If  he  had 
been  at  home  during  those  first  twelve  years  of  his 
son's  life,  he  might  have  seen  and  counteracted  the 
dangerous  influence.  But  he  was  away,  and  was 
now  to  reap  bitter  fruit  from  that  absence. 

When  the  admiral,  on  his  return  from  Jamaica, 
was  put  in  the  Tower  by  Cromwell,  his  wife  and 
son  left  Wanstead  and  came  to  live  where  the  son 
had  been  born,  in  the  little  court  close  to  the  Tower. 
But  the  admiral,  on  his  release,  went  to  his  estates 
in  Ireland,  and  was  again  separated  from  his  son. 
After  the  Restoration  they  saw  more  of  each  other ; 
but  then  it  was  too  late,  and  at  no  time  had  the 
father  any  sufficient  opportunity  to  exert  such  an 
influence  as  would  shape  the  boy  as  he  wished  him 
to  be. 

In  October,  1660,  when  he  was  sixteen  years  old, 
Penn  was  sent  to  Christ  Church  College,  at  Oxford. 
Christ  Church  had  always  been  largely  the  college 
of  the  aristocracy,  and  the  foster  mother  of  some 
very  famous  men.  Besides  Penn,  we  find  among  the 
alumni,  Locke,  the  philosopher ;  South,  the  famous 
preacher ;  Liddell,  Liddon,  Pusey,  Gladstone,  Gold- 
win  Smith,  the  present  Prince  of  Wales,  Lord  Duf- 
ferin.  Lord  Salisbury,  a  host  of  minor  diplomats  and 
statesmen,  and  the  historians  Gardiner  and  Stubbs. 

Penn  was  entered  as  a  gentleman  commoner,  and 

matriculated  as  a  knight's  son.    The  selection  of  the 

college  was  evidently  part  of  the  admiral's  design 

of  pushing  on  his  son  towards  preferment  and  a  high 

61 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

career,  fitting  him  for  the  position  of  a  nobleman 
and  a  courtier.  At  college  he  would  acquire  the 
manners  and  tastes  of  a  gentleman,  and  make  the 
acquaintance  of  the  aristocracy ;  and  afterwards  the 
admiral's  influence  at  court  would  secure  for  him 
office,  advancement,  and  those  irregular  opportunities 
for  making  a  great  fortune. 

But  Oxford  at  that  time  was  not  altogether  well 
suited  to  accomplish  an  object  of  that  kind.  For 
many  years  it  had  been  under  the  influence  of  the 
Puritans.  Before  the  civil  war  they  had  railed  at 
both  the  universities  as  '*  nurseries  of  wickedness, 
nests  of  mutton  tuggers,  dens  of  formal  droanes, 
and  cages  of  unclean  birds."  When  the  success  of 
the  parliamentary  forces  let  the  Puritans  into  power, 
they  proceeded  to  make  the  universities  what  they 
thought  they  should  be.  Honest  old  Anthony 
Wood  tells  us  in  his  diary  how  unpleasantly  they 
impressed  him.  They  were  factious,  saucy,  con- 
ceited, morose,  and  delighted  in  plots,  he  says. 
They  affected  temperance,  but  tippled  privately  in 
their  own  rooms  and  crept  into  taverns  at  the  back 
door.  They  protested  against  cavalier  cursing  and 
swaggering,  but  were  themselves  sneaking,  tale-bear- 
ing, and  jealous. 

Penn  arrived  in  Oxford  in  the  year  of  the  restora- 
tion, when  the  influence  of  the  Church  of  England 
had  been  restored,  or  rather  had  been  ordered  to  be 
restored.  The  organ  of  Magdalen  College,  which 
Cromwell  had  taken  for  his  own  private  use  at 
Hampton  Court,  was  brought  back  ;  the  other  organs 
which  had  been  removed  from  college  chapels  were 

62 


EARLY  INFLUENCES 

returned  ;  the  surplice  was  once  more  worn  at  the 
services,  and  the  prayer-book  took  the  place  of  the 
extemporaneous  efforts  of  Puritan  ministers.  At  all 
this,  Wood  tells  us,  the  Puritans  '*  whined  and  made 
ugly  faces ;"  they  ridiculed  the  surplice  and  the 
prayer-book,  and  compared  the  organs  to  the 
squealing  of  pigs. 

Such  a  strong  influence  as  Puritanism  had  been 
could  not  be  wiped  out  of  Oxford  in  a  few  months. 
The  Puritan  clergy  and  dons  could  not  be  all  dis- 
missed at  once.  Many  of  them  merely  conformed 
outwardly  to  the  changed  times,  and  we  should 
naturally  expect  that  Puritanism  would  lurk  for  a 
long  time  in  the  corridors  and  secret  corners  of  the 
ancient  architecture  which  Puritanism  affected  to 
despise. 

The  churchmen  did  all  they  could  to  suppress  it 
and  build  up  the  royal  party.  They  encouraged 
the  Sunday  amusements  which  the  Puritans  had 
abolished ;  they  stopped  the  old  Puritan  custom  of 
taking  notes  of  sermons  and  repeating  sermons  at 
home,  and  the  singing  of  psalms  after  supper.  They 
allowed  people  to  loiter  in  the  streets,  sit  on  benches, 
walk  in  the  fields,  or  drink  in  the  taverns  on  Sunday, 
all  of  which  had  only  a  short  time  before  been  ac- 
counted most  damnable  practices.  They  encouraged 
May  games,  morrises,  revels,  and  plays,  and  they  did 
all  these  things  in  excess  because  the  Puritans  hated 
them.  A  great  deal  of  the  extravagance  of  the  cava- 
lier character,  the  excessive  swearing  and  swagger- 
ing, the  reckless  devotion  to  amusements,  and  the 
delivery  of  mock  sermons,  was  a  reaction  from  the 

63 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

opposite  extreme  of  the  Puritans,  and  assumed  out 
of  mere  hatred  for  the  malignants  who  had  murdered 
the  king. 

Young  William  Penn,  thrown  suddenly  among 
such  strange  conflicts  in  college  life,  seems  to  have 
revolted  from  the  vicious  part  of  these  cavalier  habits. 
But,  unfortunately,  we  have  scarcely  any  details  of 
him  at  this  time,  and  are  left  to  inferences.  He  after- 
wards spoke  of  having  while  in  college  been  sus- 
tained by  God  "in  the  midst  of  that  hellish  darkness 
and  debauchery." 

The  efforts  of  the  churchmen,  Wood  tells  us,  had 
their  effect  on  many  of  the  Puritans,  and  he  gives 
most  amusing  descriptions  of  how  they  would  cringe 
for  preferment,  and  say  that  they  were  sorry  that 
they  had  formerly  allowed  themselves  to  go  with 
the  times  ;  they  had  all  along  been  at  heart  with  the 
royal  party,  but  were  afraid  to  avow  it  They  began 
to  frequent  the  taverns  openly ;  they  stripped  off 
their  puritanical  clothes,  and  would  "put  on  cas- 
socks reaching  to  their  heels,  tied  close  with  a  sanc- 
tified circingle."  They  had  hated  a  square  cap; 
now  they  could  not  dispense  with  one.  Those  who 
had  for  years  been  wearing  the  demure  face  of  a 
saint  now  assumed  a  "wanton  countenance,"  and 
would  utter  "a  pretty  little  oath."  They  would 
make  "long  legs  and  scrapes"  to  Royalists,  and  turn 
informer  against  their  own  people.* 

The  king's  brother,  Henry,  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
had  died  of  the  small-pox  only  about  a  month  before 


*  Wood's  Diary  (ed.  of  1891),  pp.  293,  359,  360,  366,  etc. 
64 


EARLY   INFLUENCES 

Penn  arrived  in  Oxford,  and  the  nation,  now  enthu- 
siastically royalist,  went  into  mourning  for  him.  The 
universit>'  also  assumed  the  royalist  tone,  and  pub- 
lished a  volume  of  verses,  entitled  **  Threnodia,"  on 
the  young  duke's  death,  and  Penn  contributed  to 
this  volume  some  Latin  lines.  From  this  we  may 
infer  that  the  young  man  was  royalist  in  his  sym- 
pathies, or  trying  to  be.  He  often  afterwards  showed 
royalist  feelings,  so  far  as  politics  were  concerned; 
but  in  religion  he  was  on  the  Puritan  side  at  Oxford. 

He  sympathized,  it  seems,  with  the  Puritan  pro- 
tests against  the  changes  at  Oxford, — the'  surplices, 
the  revels,  and  recklessness.  There  seem  to  have 
been  several  open  rebellions  against  the  surplice. 
One  night  Puritan  students  collected  all  of  these 
abhorrent  vestments  they  could  find  and  dumped 
them  into  a  vile  cesspool,  punching  them  down 
with  sticks.  From  this  defilement  they  were  res- 
cued by  the  authorities,  and  that  and  the  subse- 
quent cleaning  of  them  was  thought  to  be  a  grand 
joke.  Wood  gives  the  details  of  the  escapade  and 
also  some  verses  of  the  time,  which  could  not  now 
by  any  possibility  be  printed.  There  is  no  evidence 
that  Penn  was  connected  with  this  particular  affair  ; 
but,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  he  was  concerned  with 
some  religious  protests,  probably  against  the  sur- 
plices, for  which  he  was  expelled  from  college. 

It  would  seem  as  if  his  father  had  not  chosen 
wisely  in  sending  him  to  Christ  Church.  But  Puri- 
tanism lurked  in  all  the  English  colleges,  and  the 
lad,  in  spite  of  his  siding  with  the  Puritan  feeling, 
took  kindly  to  many  of  those  arts  which  would  make 
5  65 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

him  the  sort  of  man  his  father  wanted  him  to  be.  He 
was  fond  of  athletic  sports,  and  became  proficient  in 
them  ;  but,  unfortunately,  in  this,  as  in  other  parts  of 
his  youthful  career,  we  have  no  details  of  his  efforts 
or  success.  From  what  we  know  of  his  writings  and 
subsequent  career,  he  must  have  studied  fairly  well, 
like  a  gentleman,  and  not  like  a  bookworm  or  re- 
cluse. He  seemed  safe  enough,  and  he  was  in  real- 
ity safe  from  Puritanism ;  but  he  was  suddenly  caught 
by  another  ism  that  was  abroad  in  those  days,  and 
in  his  father's  eyes  more  abhorrent,  degrading,  and 
unfortunate  than  even  Puritanism  could  be. 


66 


THE    QUAKERS 

/The  Quakers,  or  Friends,  as  they  preferred  to  be 
called,  were  a  very  peculiar  people  both  in  their  ori- 
gin and  in  their  belief,  and  when  Penn  was  a  young 
man  at  college  they  had  been  in  existence  as  a  dis- 
tinct sect  only  about  ten  years.  They  were  making 
terrible  trouble  and  commotion  in  England.  Large 
numbers  of  them  were  refusing  to  pay  the  tithes  or 
taxes  which  every  one  was  bound  by  law  to  pay  for 
the  support  of  the  Established  Church.  They  wrote 
books  and  pamphlets  ridiculing  the  tax,  and  steadily 
refused  to  pay  it,  until  the  sheriff  was  obliged  to 
seize  their  property  and  sell  it  for  treble  the  amount 
of  the  tax,  or  imprison  them.  Their  resistance  to 
this  tax  seemed  to  those  in  authority  but  little  short 
of  open  rebellion  and  an  encouragement  to  riot  and 
disorder. 

They  disturbed  the  administration  of  justice  by 
refusing  to  take  an  oath  in  court  or  to  be  sworn  on 
an  affidavit  The  Scriptures,  they  said,  had  com- 
manded, "  Swear  not  at  all,"  and  oaths  were  a  blas- 
phemous as  well  as  a  useless  means  of  compelling 
truthful  statements.  They  persisted  also  in  wearing 
their  hats  in  court-rooms  and  in  the  presence  of 
important  persons.  Hats  were  then  worn  in  church, 
the  clergy  preached  in  them,   they  were  worn  at 

67 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

dinner,  and,  as  a  rule,  more  generally  than  in  modem 
times.  Thus  the  few  occasions  when  they  were 
taken  off  were  more  distinctly  occasions  of  respect 
A  son  must  always  uncover  before  his  father,  every 
one  uncovered  before  the  king,  and  ordinary  per- 
sons seem  to  have  uncovered  before  the  nobility. 
But  the  Quaker  hat  remained  unmoved  on  these  oc- 
casions. They  uncovered,  they  said,  only  in  prayer 
as  an  act  of  worship,  and  it  would  be  a  dishonor  to 
their  Maker  to  treat  men  in  the  same  manner. 

They  refused  to  address  any  one  by  his  title  or 
rank  ;  they  would  not  even  use  the  title  mister ;  and 
bluntly  called  every  one  by  his  first  name.  They 
also  addressed  every  one  indiscriminately  as  thee 
and  thou  because  the  use  of  the  plural  you  had 
originated,  they  said,  in  the  vanity  of  compliment 
Thee  and  thou  were  used  at  that  time  only  to  ser- 
vants and  inferiors  ;  and  no  other  Quaker  peculiarity 
seems  to  have  given  so  much  offence  as  this  one. 
Penn  describes  the  indignation  with  which  people 
would  turn  on  a  Quaker  and  exclaim,  "  Thou  me, 
thou  my  dog  !  If  thou  thou'st  me,  I'll  thou  thy 
teeth  down  thy  throat"  To  which  the  Quaker 
would  reply  by  asking,  "  Why,  then,  dost  thou  al- 
ways address  God  in  thy  prayers  by  thee  and 
thou?" 

Penn  seems  to  have  used  the  thee  and  thou  lan- 
guage rather  sparingly.  In  his  private  letters  to  ac- 
quaintances who  were  Quakers  he  of  course  used  it 
freely ;  and  he  sometimes  used  it  to  those  who  were 
not  Quakers,  when  he  was  indignant  or  angry ;  but 
in  his  important  public   letters  he  often  managed 

68 


THE  QUAKERS 

to  avoid  it  altogether,  and  for  the  reason,  no  doubt, 
that,  being  an  educated  man,  he  would  not  give  un- 
necessary offence^^' 

The  rest  of  the  early  Quakers,  however,  were 
mostly  people  of  the  lower  orders,  already  rough 
enough  in  their  ways,  and  they  seemed  to  the  upper 
classes  of  that  time  determined  to  make  their  religion 
as  offensive  and  vulgar  as  possible.  They  preached  in 
taverns  and  in  the  streets  and  fields,  gathering  crowds 
which  those  who  disliked  them  said  were  a  menace 
to  peace  and  good  order.  They  walked  along  the 
streets  giving  prophecies  and  warnings  of  doom  in 
a  strange  monotonous  voice  which  was  a  variation 
on  the  drawl  of  the  Puritans.  They  trembled  as 
they  spoke,  and  from  this,  or  because  George  Fox 
had  bade  the  magistrates  tremble  at  the  word  of  the 
Lord,  they  were  called  Quakers.  They  went  into 
church  during  service  and  interrupted  the  preacher 
with  sharp  critical  comment,  and  were  often  so  wild 
and  fantastic  that  they  broke  up  the  congregation. 

The  women  among  them  preached  and  took  the 
part  of  men.  They  would  keep  the  fasts  and  holy 
days  of  neither  Churchman  nor  Puritan.  They  trav- 
elled on  Sunday,  and  some  of  them  even  opened 
their  shops  on  Sunday.  Occasionally  some  of  them 
would  become  almost  insane,  break  bottles  in  a 
church  as  a  sign,  or  go  half  naked,  like  Solomon 
Eccles,  who,  having  stripped  himself  to  the  waist, 
walked  through  a  town  with  a  pan  of  fire  and  brim- 
stone on  his  head. 

In  a  word,  judged  by  the  standard  of  that  time, 
their  manners  to  both  Churchmen  and  Puritans  were 

69 


n 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

detestable ;  and  when  the  substance  of  their  belief 
was  known  it  seemed  worse  than  their  manners. 

They  denied  the  validity  of  all  the  sacraments  ; 
not  merely  the  numerous  sacraments  of  the  Roman 
church,  but  they  denied  baptism  and  the  Lord's 
Supper,  which  were  retained  by  the  Protestants. 
They  denied  every  dogma  and  doctrine  not  only  of 
the  Roman  church,  but  of  all  the  Protestant  churches 
as  well.  They  refused  to  accept  the  complicated 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  stated  in  the  Athanasian 
creed.  They  declared  that  a  man  was  not  bound  to 
believe  more  than  his  reason  could  comprehend. 
They  even  regarded  the  Scriptures  differently  from 
most  Protestants  ;  for  while  they  admitted  the  va- 
lidity of  the  Bible  as  a  guide  and  comfort,  they 
insisted  that  they  were  capable  of  receiving  reve- 
lations in  addition  to  and  independent  of  it. 

They  protested  against  original  sin  and  the  whole 
system  of  doctrine  by  which  it  was  believed  to  be 
impossible  for  man  to  be  anything  but  a  sinner ;  and 
in  place  of  it  they  announced  their  belief  in  the  pos- 
sibility of  human  perfection  on  earth.  This  was  a 
bold  doctrine,  lifting  at  once  that  vast  burden  which 
had  weighed  down  so  many  human  hearts,  but  it 
brought  them  the  most  intense  hatred  and  contempt 
of  both  Catholics  and  Protestants. 

They  protested  against  all  clergymen  and  preachers 
who  received  a  reward  for  their  services,  calling  them 
a  hireling  ministry.  Their  own  preachers  were  un- 
paid, and  they  protested  against  higher  education 
and  learning,  which,  they  said,  was  a  hinderance  to 
any  one  who  wished  to  preach  the  religion  of  Christ 

70 


THE  QUAKERS 

They  called  churches  "priest-houses"  or  "steeple- 
houses;"  and  they  objected  to  the  use  of  the  word 
church  as  applied  to  a  building  or  a  corporate  body. 
The  church  of  Christ  was  in  their  minds  a  purely 
spiritual  conception  or  spiritual  body,  if  such  a  term 
can  be  used. 

They  appeared  to  have  only  one  important  doc- 
trine that  was  not  negative,  and  that  was  their  belief 
in  what  they  called  the  inward  light,  which  had 
been  given  by  Christ  to  every  one  who  came  into 
the  world,  and  was  sufficient  to  guide  him  to  all 
truth  and  save  his  soul  without  the  aid  of  cere- 
monies, dogmas,  priests,  or  churches.  This  light 
was  not  to  be  confounded  with  conscience,  which 
was  a  natural  quality  of  human  nature,  and  existed 
in  Adam  before  the  fall.  The  inward  light  was  in 
addition  to  conscience  and  intended  to  enlighten  and 
assist  it 

Their  worship  was  formless,  or  rather  formal  in  its 
formlessness.  They  sat  silent  in  their  meetings  until 
some  one  was  moved  by  the  Spirit  to  pray  or  preach, 
and  it  was  possible  for  a  meeting  to  be  conducted  in 
entire  silence  from  beginning  to  end.  By  this  silent 
contemplation  they  cultivated  the  inward  light  and 
developed  its  growth  and  power  in  the  soul.  Two 
friends  might  hold  in  this  way  a  silent  meeting  to- 
gether. Serenity,  contemplation,  and  quietude  were, 
therefore,  essentials  of  their  belief,  for  without  them 
there  could  be  no  spiritual  growth. 

They  accordingly  became  opposed  to  everything 
that  disturbed  this  habit  of  quietude.  They  pro- 
hibited among  their  members  all  games  and  amuse- 

71 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

ments,  theatres,  cards,  balls,  sports,  and  hazardous 
or  exciting  enterprises  ;  and  as  one  of  the  most 
exciting  occupations  followed  by  men  is  politics  and 
political  discussion  the  Quakers  as  a  class  kept  out 
of  political  life.  An  exception  had  to  be  made  to 
this  rule  in  Pennsylvania,  where  they  were  in  control 
of  the  government,  and  there  have  been  striking  ex- 
ceptions in  the  case  of  distinguished  individuals,  like 
John  Bright,  who  in  our  own  time  has  been  so  emi- 
nent in  modern  British  politics.  William  Penn  can- 
not be  said  to  have  abstained  from  this  form  of 
mental  disturbance,  and,  indeed,  George  Fox  him- 
self and  many  of  those  Quakers  who  were  im- 
prisoned for  preaching  their  faith,  seem  to  have  led 
rather  exciting  lives.  But  as  a  sect  they  were  very 
much  inclined  to  retire  within  themselves  and  live  to 
themselves,  a  habit  which  did  not  increase  their 
popularity. 

Nor  were  they  raised  in  the  popular  esteem  of 
that  age  by  their  strenuous  opposition  to  war  as  un- 
christian and  their  refusal  to  serve  as  soldiers.  They 
were  also  very  ardent  believers  in  religious  liberty  ; 
indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  they  were  almost  the 
only  sincere  advocates  of  it  at  that  time  ;  but  it  was 
a  doctrine  by  which  no  very  great  favor  could  be 
gained  from  either  Churchman  or  Puritan. 

Nor  was  their  leader  and  organizer,  George^  Fox, 
the  sort  of  man  who  would  be  at  all  pleasing  to 
conservative  people.  He  had  scarcely  any  education, 
being  barely  able  to  read  and  write.  His  father  was 
a  weaver,  and  he  himself,  when  a  boy,  was  employed 
to  herd  sheep.     But  he  was  a  strong  character,  with 

72 


THE   QUAKERS 

boundless    courage    and    an    elemental    vigor    and 
energy  which  carried  him  over  every  obstacle. 

When  only  nineteen  years  old  the  religious  unrest 
of  the  time  seized  upon  his  untamable  spirit.  He 
walked  up  and  down  his  bedroom  or  wandered  in 
the  woods  and  fields  full  of  the  religious  melancholy 
of  the  age,  and  wrestling  with  the  strange  wonderful 
thoughts  which  the  Reformation  had  set  afloat  in  the 
world.  He  consulted  the  clergy  of  the  Established 
Church  and  the  Puritan  ministers,  but  they  failed  to 
satisfy  him.  They  no  doubt  thought  he  was  crazy, 
for  one  told  him  to  smoke  tobacco  and  sing  psalms, 
and  another  advised  him  to  go  and  have  some  blood 
let.  Like  many  others,  he  became  convinced  that  all 
forms  of  religion  were  corrupted  and  worthless.  He 
wandered  over  the  country  and  went  to  London,  but 
found  "  all  was  dark  and  under  the  chain  of  dark- 
ness." He  was  in  great  trouble  and  distress  of  mind, 
with  occasional  reactions  towards  extreme  happiness. 

"  I  fasted  much,"  he  says,  "  walked  abroad  in  solitary  places 
many  days,  and  often  took  my  Bible,  and  sat  in  hollow  trees  and 
lonesome  places  till  night  came  on  ;  and  frequently  in  the  night 
walked  mournfully  about  by  myself ;  for  I  was  a  man  of  sorrows  in 
the  time  of  the  first  workings  of  the  Lord  in  me.  .  .  .  Though  my 
exercises  and  troubles  were  very  great,  yet  were  they  not  so  continued 
but  that  I  had  some  intermissions,  and  was  sometimes  brought  into 
such  a  heavenly  joy,  that  I  thought  I  had  been  in  Abraham's  bosom." 
(Journal,  p.  6.) 

These  inward  torturings  of  the  spirit,  with  violent 
reactions  from  joy  to  gloom,  were  every-day  occur- 
rences then,  and  were  manufacturing  Cromwells, 
Puritans,  Fifth  Monarchy  men,  Quakers,  or  the  en- 
thusiasts of  Massachusetts,  according  to  the  material 

73 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

on  which  they  worked.  People  screamed  with  ex- 
citement at  the  religious  meetings  in  the  fields, 
shouted,  trembled,  denounced  themselves,  and  went 
into  ecstasies  over  new  ideas  which  now  seem  com- 
monplace enough.  "  I  was  struck  with  more  terror 
by  the  preaching  of  James  Nayler,"  said  an  old 
Cromwellian  soldier,  "  than  I  was  at  the  battle  of 
Dunbar."  But  although  we  find  many  instances  of 
this  sort  in  the  diaries  and  literature  of  the  time,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  another  which  presents 
such  a  strange  picture  or  one  so  typical  of  the  age 
as  this  great  powerful-souled  boy  sitting  in  a  hollow 
tree  with  his  Bible  on  his  lap,  and  out  of  the  wild 
mystic  thoughts  that  were  floating  through  his  un- 
educated brain  founding  a  new  religion. 

He  was  only  twenty-two  when,  among  other 
strange  thoughts,  it  suddenly  occurred  to  him  in  his 
wanderings  that  human  learning,  the  education  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  was  not  a  proper  qualifica- 
tion for  a  minister  of  Christ.  It  was  a  natural 
thought,  for  he  himself  had  none  of  that  sort  of 
education.  He  clung  to  the  idea,  and  it  shows  the 
strange  condition  of  the  times  that  his  vigorous  per- 
sonality was  able  to  force  this  ignorant  boyish  notion 
upon  a  whole  sect  But  the  large  majority  of  the 
Quakers,  being  of  the  uneducated  classes,  readily 
accepted  Fox's  dreams. 

He  was  inclined  to  impute  to  himself  miraculous 
power,  as  can  be  readily  seen  in  his  journal,  where 
he  professes  to  have  cast  out  an  evil  spirit,  healed 
the  sick,  and  seen  visions.  He  describes  his  visit  to 
Litchfield  in  most  extraordinary  language. 

74 


THE   QUAKERS 

"  As  I  went  thus  crying  through  the  streets  there 
seemed  to  me  a  channel  of  blood  running  down  the 
streets,  and  the  market-place  appeared  a  pool  of 
blood." 

Macaulay's  clever  phrase,  that  his  intellect  was 
"in  the  most  unhappy  of  all  states,  that  is  to  say,  too 
much  disordered  for  liberty  and  not  sufficiently  dis- 
ordered for  Bedlam,"  is  hardly  fair.  In  spite  of  his 
extraordinary  interpretations  of  Scripture,  he  had  in 
all  practical  matters  great  shrewdness  and  common 
sense,  and  so  much  courage  and  force  of  character 
that  the  Puritans  tried  to  coax  him  to  become  an 
officer  in  the  parliamentary  army.  Nor  is  it  fair  to 
judge  him  by  his  ungrammatical  English,  which  had 
to  be  corrected  for  publication  by  better-educated 
Quakers.  Not  long  before  his  time  the  world  had 
been  ruled  for  the  most  part  by  men  who  could 
barely  write  their  names  ;  and  even  to  this  day  one 
cannot  read  Fox's  Journal  without  feeling  the  won- 
derful power  and  spirit  of  the  man,  and  at  times  the 
homely  beauty  of  his  words. 

The  movement  of  the  time,  which  was  revolting 
from  dogma,  got  complete  possession  of  him  and 
swept  him  along.  He  rejected  all  the  forms  of  re- 
ligion he  found  round  him.  He  attended  those 
strange  meetings  in  the  fields  of  that  excited  time 
where  Churchmen,  Baptists,  Presbyterians,  Indepen- 
dents, and  all  manner  of  sects  met  for  public  discus- 
sion and  the  asking  of  puzzling,  mystical  questions. 
He  spoke  at  these  gatherings  and  also  among  the 
people,  who  discussed  the  same  questions  at  fairs, 
markets,  and  public  resorts. 

75 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

He  wandered  all  over  England,  stoned  by  mobs, 
imprisoned  by  magistrates,  hooted  at  by  boys,  ridi- 
culed, wondered  at,  respected,  hated,  loved.  He 
saw  the  strange  sects  that  believed  that  women  had 
no  souls  and  those  who  relied  on  dreams,  many  of 
whom  became  Quakers.  As  we  read  his  journal  we 
seem  to  live  in  the  England  of  that  strange  age.  He 
argued  with  the  Ranters,  who  sang,  whistled,  and 
danced  before  him.  He  was  in  jails  where  he  found 
people  almost  eaten  to  death  with  lice.  He  faced 
raging  women  who  threatened  to  tear  out  his  hair, 
lusty  butchers  who  said  they  would  kill  him  ;  and 
one  of  these,  who  always  stuck  out  his  tongue  at 
Quakers,  had,  he  assures  us,  the  tongue  so  swollen 
that  he  could  not  draw  it  in,  and  so  died.  The  con- 
ceit with  which  he  describes  his  success  and  every- 
thing bowing  down  before  him  would  be  continually 
amusing  if  we  did  not  so  often  come  to  passages  of 
terrible  cruelty  or  suffering,  tender  pathos,  strong, 
honest  sense,  and  noble  sentiment 

Gradually  he  found  people  of  his  way  of  thinking 
among  those  curious  sects  known  as  Familists  and 
Seekers,  until  in  a  few  years  he  had  organized  fol- 
lowers who  were  called  Children  of  the  Light,  or 
Quakers. 

So  he  went  on  arguing  with  clergymen  in  their 
steeple-houses,  writing  letters  to  the  magistrates  who 
imprisoned  him  and  to  mayors  and  officials,  rebuking 
them  in  such  frank  language  that  it  is  no  wonder  he 
had  to  make  himself  a  suit  of  leather  clothes,  the 
better  to  endure  his  frequent  and  long  imprison- 
ments. 

76 


THE  QUAKERS 

What  an  unpleasant  fellow  he  was  who  would  go 
into  a  church  and  cry  to  the  clergyman, — 

"  Come  down,  thou  deceiver  ;  dost  thou  bid  people 
come  freely  and  take  of  the  waters  of  life,  and  yet 
thou  takest  three  hundred  pound  a  year  of  them."  * 

In  another  church  he  argued  with  the  clergyman 
until  the  congregation  drove  him  out,  beating  him 
with  staves  and  throwing  clods  and  stones  at  him. 
Nor  was  this  the  only  time  that  he  was  kicked  out 
of  a  church  with  blows  or  beaten  and  stoned  as  he 
passed  through  the  streets.  "  Let  us  have  him  out 
of  church,"  cried  a  congregation  at  Tickhill  as  they 
rushed  upon  him,  and  the  clerk  struck  him  over  the 
face  so  violently  with  the  Bible  that  the  floor  was 
covered  with  his  blood,  f 

But  still  he  turned  again  to  face  them  and  preach. 
His  leather  clothes  and  stout  frame  could  take  these 
things  lightly,  and  his  indomitable  spirit  was  aroused 
to  fresh  exertions.  The  descriptions  we  have  of  his 
contests  are  his  own,  and  of  course  he  always  rep- 
resents himself  as  coming  out  at  least  morally  vic- 
torious. 

This  strange  people  and  their  strange  leader  were, 
however,  a  perfectly  natural  product  of  the  times, 
when  men  were  revolting  from  the  system  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  were  driven  almost  crazy  by  the 
new-found  liberty  of  the  Reformation.  It  is  difficult 
now  to  realize  what  a  wonderful  system  priestcraft 
had  wrought,  and  how  it  had  altered,  or  rather 
almost  annihilated,  the  mental  faculties,  until  men 


*  Marsh's  Life  of  Fox,  p.  86.  f  Ibid.,  p.  92. 

77 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

through  long  disuse  of  their  brains  had  become 
mere  children. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  everything  had  been  absorbed 
into  theology  and  dogma.  Artists  could  paint  only 
ecclesiastical  pictures,  and  the  skill  of  architects 
was  devoted  mainly  to  cathedrals.  The  politicians 
were  usually  priests,  and  every  man's  last  will  and 
testament  had  to  be  proved  before  and  his  estate 
distributed  by  a  bishop.  The  domestic  relations  of 
life  were  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  priesthood. 
There  was  scarcely  any  physical  science,  and  the 
little  there  was,  was  referred  to  the  theologians.  If 
it  would  square  with  the  dogmas,  it  was  right ;  if  it 
would  not  square  with  them,  it  was  wrong.  If  a 
fact  of  nature  was  contrary  to  a  dogma,  so  much 
the  worse  for  nature.  All  reasoning  was  by  the 
scholastic  method,  in  which  the  dogmas  of  the 
church  were  taken  as  a  starting-point  from  which 
you  might  reason,  but  to  which  you  must  return  on 
pain  of  death.  Independent  investigation,  original 
research,  free  inquiry  were  crimes.  The  dogmatic, 
the  miraculous,  and  the  impossible  were  alone  im- 
portant 

The  dogmas  had  been  wrought  by  the  most  cun- 
ning human  ingenuity  into  a  magnificent  system. 
Beginning  in  the  fourth  century,  when  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  began  to  claim  authority  as  chief  bishop  or 
pope,  the  development  went  steadily  on.  The  wor- 
ship of  the  Virgin  began.  Image  worship,  which 
had  been  a  heresy,  was  permitted  in  the  seventh 
century.  Transubstantiation,  which  became  in  the 
end  one  of  the  most  important  doctrines,  had  not 

78 


THE   QUAKERS 

even  a  name  until  the  eleventh  century,  and  was  not 
definitely  decreed  until  121 5.  So  also  of  auricular 
confession,  which  was  decreed  the  same  year.  Up 
to  the  twelfth  century  there  were  only  two  sacra- 
ments. After  that  there  were  seven.  The  celibacy 
of  the  clergy,  which  was  unsuccessfully  attempted 
in  the  fourth  century,  was  finally  made  binding  in 
the  eleventh. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  miracles  were  being  per- 
formed almost  every  day,  all  over  Europe,  at  thou- 
sands of  shrines  and  by  thousands  of  persons,  and 
they  all  had  to  be  believed  ;  and  thousands  of  saints 
were  being  created  which  must  be  worshipped  ;  and 
holy  rags  and  bones  and  pieces  of  sacred  wood, 
capable  of  curing  disease  and  protecting  from  dan- 
ger, were  being  multiplied  without  number. 

Of  the  accompaniments  of  this  system  we  can 
only  briefly  speak.  The  most  typical,  perhaps,  was 
witchcraft,  for  which  during  the  Middle  Ages  over 
nine  million  men  and  women  were  put  to  death. 
Other  religions  have  been  afflicted  with  this  delu- 
sion, but  no  religion  ever  developed  it  to  such 
excess  as  the  Christianity  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Over 
four  thousand  books  were  written  on  the  subject,  and 
the  methods  for  detecting  and  punishing  this  sup- 
posed crime  were  as  regular  and  as  well  recognized 
as  our  modem  systems  of  police. 

Of  the  cruelty  of  that  religion  most  of  us  have 
heard.  We  are  amazed  at  the  organized  system  of 
the  Inquisition,  with  its  regularly  appointed  officials 
like  a  modern  corporation  or  a  department  of  gov- 
ernment    We  wonder  at  the  men  who  studied  the 

79 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

human  body  and  the  mechanical  arts  for  the  purpose 
of  producing  the  greatest  amount  of  suffering  ;  who 
invented  ingenious  methods  of  stretching  and  crush- 
ing the  joints  and  tearing  out  the  finger-nails  ;  who 
wrote  manuals  to  guide  their  successors  in  detecting 
the  smallest  theological  error  and  inflicting  the 
greatest  amount  of  torture  ;  and  who  followed  the 
surest  routes  to  agony  with  the  same  zeal  with  which 
men  now  build  easy  paths  for  commerce  and  de- 
velop steam,  electricity,  and  surgery. 

So  Christianity  became  the  most  cruel  as  well  as 
the  most  superstitious  religion  that  has  ever  pre- 
vailed among  men.  But  the  cruel  part  of  it  was  all 
perfectly  logical ;  for  those  people  had  accepted 
literally  and  believed  absolutely  not  only  the  great 
mass  of  the  dogmas,  but  the  dogma  which  crowned 
the  whole  and  made  the  system  complete,  the  doc- 
trine of  exclusive  salvation.  By  that  doctrine,  unless 
a  man  believed  all  the  other  dogmas  he  could  not  be 
saved.  If  he  refused  to  give  to  them  the  consent 
of  his  mind,  he  must  burn  forever  in  hell.  This  was 
the  keystone  of  the  arch,  and,  if  it  was  true,  every 
Protestant,  dissenter,  and  heretic  deserved  instant 
death,  and  death  would  be  too  mild  a  punishment. 
The  men  who  by  their  example  and  encouragement 
would  wreck  the  eternal  salvation  of  others  deserved 
not  only  death,  but  every  kind  of  torture :  to  have 
their  entrails  cut  out  and  burnt  before  their  eyes, 
to  be  torn  asunder  while  alive  by  four  horses,  or 
anything  which  would  make  heresy  terrible.  In 
the  face  of  an  eternity  of  woe  for  millions  the 
anguish  of  a  few  hundred  counts  for  nothing ;  and 

80 


THE   QUAKERS 

thus  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Inquisition  logically 
reasoned. 

We  have  instances  in  our  own  time  of  what  ter- 
rible things  men  and  women  will  do  when  they 
really  believe  their  supreme  interest  is  threatened. 
As  the  irreconcilable  conflict  between  the  white 
race  and  the  black  in  our  country  becomes  more 
and  more  intense,  and  with  rapidly  increasing  num- 
bers assails  more  closely  the  white  man's  honor  and 
safety,  we  burn  negroes  to  death  at  the  stake  and  an 
approving  crowd  stands  by  to  watch  the  sizzling 
flesh  and  the  agony,  or  applaud  as  strips  of  skin  are 
cut  from  the  victim,  just  as  five  hundred  years  ago 
they  stood  round  the  heretic.  We  resent  being  told 
that  we  are  back  in  the  Middle  Ages.  But  the 
wicked  and  mistaken  doctrine  of  putting  two  irrec- 
oncilable races  to  live  together  may  become  as 
frightful  in  its  results  as  the  mistaken  doctrine  of  an 
infallible  church  and  exclusive  salvation. 

We  all  know  the  story  of  the  Reformation : 
how  the  revival  of  the  ancient  learning  of  Greece 
and  Rome  and  the  invention  of  the  printing  press 
pricked  this  vast  bubble  of  delusion  that  had  been 
inflated  by  the  efforts  of  a  thousand  years  ;  and 
then  Europe  seethed  and  boiled  and  rocked  to  and 
fro  with  the  struggles  of  reform  and  fanaticism. 

But  it  was,  after  all,  a  slow  process  extending  over 
several  hundred  years.  Even  the  most  ardent  re- 
formers could  at  first  get  rid  of  only  one  dogma  at 
a  time.  Wycliff,  the  first  great  leader  of  the  Refor- 
mation, rejected  only  transubstantiation  and  kept 
pretty  much  all  the  rest.  Huss,  his  successor,  at- 
6  8i 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

tacked  only  the  fraudulent  miracles  of  the  ecclesias- 
tics and  professed  to  accept  all  the  dogmas,  although 
he  struck  at  the  root  of  the  whole  system  by  de- 
claring his  belief  in  religious  liberty.  Luther,  who 
appeared  a  hundred  years  after  Huss,  was  equally 
conservative.  His  famous  ninety-five  propositions 
were  aimed  only  at  the  sale  of  indulgences,  which  at 
that  time  was  carried  to  great  excess.  He  after- 
wards denied  the  authority  of  the  Pope,  which  was 
certainly  going  a  great  way.  But  he  clung  to  many 
dogmas  which  were  rejected  by  nearly  all  other 
Protestants. 

The  same  hesitation  to  break  entirely  and  sud- 
denly with  the  past  was  shown  by  all  the  large 
churches  or  divisions  of  the  Reformation.  The 
Church  of  England,  the  Lutherans,  the  Presbyterians, 
and  the  Independents  gave  up  some  of  the  dogmas, 
but  clung  to  the  remainder  with  great  determination. 
But  the  numerous  small  and  badly  organized  sects 
were  always  more  progressive.  Composed  largely 
of  lower-class  people,  with  nothing  to  lose  by  a 
change  and  unprejudiced  by  education,  many  of 
them  disposed  at  once  of  the  whole  dogmatic  sys- 
tem, and  relied  entirely  on  their  own  thought  and 
judgment,  and  reliance  on  individual  conscience 
and  judgment  was  the  test  of  advancement  in  the 
Reformation. 

There  were  a  great  many  of  these  small  sects  in 
those  days,  with  curious  names  long  since  forgotten. 
Familists,  Seekers,  Ranters,  Pietists,  Antinomians, 
Antescripturists,  Enthusiasts,  Soul  Sleepers,  Levellers, 
Adamites,  Traskites,  and  Anabaptists  were  the  more 

82 


THE  QUAKERS 

important  ones  which  shocked  sober  people  by  their 
frantic  radicalism. 

From  the  Familists,  Seekers,  Ranters,  Baptists, 
and  Antinomians  the  Quakers  seem  to  have  been 
largely  recruited,  and  these  sects  had  not  a  little  in- 
fluence in  the  settlement  of  the  colonies  in  America. 
Familism,  as  a  doctrine,  was  more  or  less  prevalent 
among  several  sects.  They  held  that  no  forms  or 
doctrines  were  necessary,  that  as  Moses  had  taught 
the  law  and  Christ  faith,  so  the  third  and  new  order 
of  things  was  love.  By  love  and  contemplation  they 
believed  that  they  could  get  into  direct  communica- 
tion with  God,  and  therefore  for  them  all  ceremonies 
were  useless.  Love  covered  everything,  and  they 
called  themselves  The  Family  of  Love. 

The  Seekers,  like  the  Familists,  had  suddenly  been 
allowed  to  read  the  Scriptures  on  which  all  religion 
was  supposed  to  rest,  and  finding  in  them  no  au- 
thority for  the  doings  of  the  church  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  they  cut  loose  from  everything.  All  sacra- 
ments and  ordinances,  and  all  church  government, 
they  said,  had  been  utterly  corrupted,  and  they  were 
waiting  and  seeking  for  a  new  revelation.  Roger 
Williams,  who  was  banished  from  Massachusetts 
for  heresy,  and  afterwards  founded  Rhode  Island, 
was  more  or  less  affiliated  with  these  people.  They 
have  sometimes  been  confused  with  the  Familists. 
Penn,  in  his  essay  on  **The  Rise  and  Progress 
of  the  People  called  Quakers,"  speaks  of  the  two 
sects  as  in  reality  one.  Both  they  and  the  Familists 
are  said  to  have  worshipped  in  silence  like  the 
Quakers. 

«3 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

The  Antinomians  were  very  much  like  the  Fami- 
lists,  and  Antinomianism  was  a  general  name  applied 
to  people  who  relied  on  inward  feeling  and  convic- 
tion ;  had  gone  back,  in  fact,  to  a  sort  of  natural  re- 
ligion, and  were  independent  of  all  dogmas  and  all 
regularly  organized  churches.  Mrs.  Ann  Hutchinson, 
who  was  so  severely  treated  and  finally  banished  from 
Massachusetts,  was  an  Antinomian.  Some  of  her 
followers  who  fled  to  Rhode  Island  became  Quakers, 
and  among  them  was  Mary  Dyer,  who  was  afterwards 
hung  for  her  new  faith  on  Boston  Common.  Anti- 
nomianism led  very  directly  to  Quakerism. 

But  these  queer  sects  did  not  last  long,  nor  were 
they  able  to  attract  to  themselves  for  any  length  of 
time  such  strong,  intelligent,  and  devoted  characters 
as  were  drawn  to  the  Quakers.  The  Quakers  sup- 
plied all  that  these  sects  had  and  a  great  deal  more 
besides  ;  and  they  supplied  it  in  a  better  way,  and 
were  better  organized. 

The  reason  the  Quakers  absorbed  the  others  and 
survived  seems  to  have  been  because  they  set  forth 
the  definite  and  intelligent  plan  of  returning  to  primi- 
tive Christianity  in  its  most  ancient  and  simple  form. 
To  the  seekers  and  others  who  thought  that  all  re- 
ligion had  become  hopelessly  corrupt,  they  showed 
that  original  Christianity  was  still  as  pure  as  ever. 
Let  us  return,  they  said,  to  old  Christianity  as  it 
existed  during  the  first  three  centuries  after  the 
time  of  the  apostles,  before  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
became  Pope,  and  before  the  great  mass  of  dogma, 
superstition,  fraud,  and  cruelty  were  developed  by 
priestcraft 

84 


THE  QUAKERS 

The  Church  of  England  and  the  Puritans  were 
halting  half-way  in  the  Reformation.  They  could 
satisfy  the  rich  and  powerful,  but  they  could  not 
satisfy  the  poor,  the  ordinary,  or  even  the  rich  who 
had  simple  spiritual  minds.  Do  not  halt,  then,  said 
the  Quakers.  Go  back  all  the  way,  back  to  the 
simple  Christians  of  the  Catacombs,  the  best  and 
greatest  of  all  Christians,  who  endured  such  terrible 
martyrdom,  who  lived  such  stainless  lives,  who  were 
so  affectionate  in  their  families,  and  who  put  such 
touching,  simple  inscriptions  on  the  tombs  of  their 
dead  ;  back  to  these  Christians  who  were  nearest  to 
the  Saviour,  who  had  no  system  of  dogma  or  the- 
ology, no  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  no  transubstantia- 
tion  or  infallibility,  and  no  formal  creeds  ;  whose 
religion  spread  itself  not  by  theology,  cruelty,  or 
force,  but  by  its  own  moral  superiority,  its  simple 
spirituality,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  the 
inward  light  from  Christ. 

So  the  Quakers  became  earnest  students  of  the 
fathers  of  the  church,  as  they  are  called,  those  very 
ancient  writers,  Tertullian,  Irenaeus,  Justin  Martyr, 
Cyprian,  Eusebius,  Origen,  and  others,  who  are  the 
authorities  for  our  knowledge  of  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians, whose  opinions  are  so  numerous  and  so  varied 
that  they  are  store-houses  of  quotations  for  all  sorts 
of  religious  belief,  and  who  have  always  been  the 
delight  of  those  who  explore  the  original  sources 
of  Christianity.  There  the  Quakers  found  full  justi- 
fication for  their  peculiar  doctrines.  They  found 
a  spiritual  worship  free  from  elaborate  ceremony. 
They  found  that  the  ministers  and  preachers  received 

85 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

no  pay.  They  found  complete  freedom  of  opinion, 
the  religious  liberty  which  they  longed  to  see  estab- 
lished in  England.  They  found  also  that  some  of 
these  early  Christians  were  opposed  to  oaths  and 
also  to  war ;  and  that  they  protested  against  vain 
fashions,  corrupting  amusements,  and  flattering  titles. 

The  Quakers  were  by  no  means  the  first  people 
who  had  uttered  this  cry  for  a  return  to  primitive 
Christianity.  It  had  been  heard  several  times  dur- 
ing the  long  night  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  it  was 
quickly  smothered  by  an  iron  hand.  The  Albi- 
genses  in  the  south  of  France  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury had  been  a  numerous  people  and  held  a  very 
pure  and  simple  doctrine  somewhat  like  that  of  the 
Quakers ;  but  the  armies  of  Pope  Innocent  III. 
within  a  few  months  slaughtered  over  two  hundred 
thousand  of  them  ;  and  it  is  supposed  that  within  a 
period  of  twenty  years  more  than  a  million  of  them 
were  put  to  death.  The  Waldenses  of  the  Pied- 
mont Valleys,  who  were  a  similar  people,  were  also 
hunted  down,  and  men,  women,  and  children  suffo- 
cated in  their  caves  or  cut  to  pieces  by  the  soldiers 
of  holy  church. 

If  George  Fox  and  the  Quakers  had  appeared  a 
century  sooner,  they  would  have  been  exterminated 
to  a  man  ;  for  their  doctrine  was  more  far-reaching, 
aggressive,  and  dangerous  than  the  simple  faith  of 
such  people  as  the  Albigenses.  But  at  the  time 
the  Quakers  appeared  the  principles  of  the  Refor- 
mation had  advanced  too  far  to  allow  of  wholesale 
slaughtering.  Nevertheless  the  government  and 
sober-minded,  religious  people  were  willing  to  go  a 

86 


THE  QUAKERS 

long  way  in  suppressing  a  belief  which  threatened 
to  destroy  everything  that  was  conservative  in  both 
religion  and  manners.  Ordinances  were  passed 
authorizing  the  justices  of  the  peace  to  imprison 
any  who  should  deny  the  validity  of  the  two  sacra- 
ments, Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper,  or  maintain 
other  principles  of  the  Quaker  belief  When  they 
held  their  meetings  in  the  street  or  market-place 
they  were  arrested  for  a  breach  of  the  peace.  They 
were  arrested  as  Sabbath-breakers  when  travelling 
to  their  meetings ;  and  when  wandering  about  in 
their  missionary  work  they  were  arrested  as  vagrants 
and  whipped.     . 

After  the  restoration  their  punishments  were  in- 
creased. Old  laws  of  Henry  VIII. 's  and  Elizabeth's 
reign  were  applied  to  them.  By  these  la^s,  which 
were  aimed  primarily  at  Roman  Catholics,  they 
could  be  imprisoned  as  well  as  lose  their  property 
for  not  paying  tithes  ;  and  if  they  refused  to  attend 
the  parish  church,  they  could  be  fined,  imprisoned, 
and  finally  banished.  An  act  was  also  passed 
specially  naming  the  Quakers,  describing  them  as 
worse  than  rebels,  and  "  a  terror  of  the  people  ;"  and 
by  this  act,  if  they  refused  to  take  an  oath,  or  argued 
or  wrote  against  the  practice,  or  if  they  held  meetings 
among  themselves,  they  could  be  fined,  imprisoned, 
and  finally  banished.  Another  act  provided  that 
for  unlawfully  assembling  they  could  be  convicted 
and  sentenced  to  three  or  five  months'  imprisonment 
by  a  magistrate  without  trial  by  jury.  The  officers 
of  the  militia  and  army  were  authorized  to  break 
up  and  disperse  such  assemblies   and   capture  the 

87 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

leaders ;  and  the  magistrates  were  authorized  in 
executing  the  act  to  break  into  all  dwelling-houses 
except  the  houses  of  peers  of  the  realm. 

Other  acts  which  were  originally  intended  to  be 
used  against  the  meetings  of  the  Presbyterians  and 
Independents  were  executed  against  the  Quakers 
with  great  severity.  These  acts  gave  part  of  the 
fines  to  informers,  who  made  it  their  business  to  live 
on  the  spoil  and  ruin  of  the  Quakers,  who  lost  the 
stock  in  their  shops,  and  even  their  household  goods 
and  bedding,  and  some,  reduced  to  abject  poverty, 
were  compelled  to  sleep  on  bare  boards. 

In  the  British  colonies,  the  Bermudas,  Jamaica, 
and  other  places  similar  punishments  were  inflicted. 
In  Massachusetts  the  punishments  were  worse  than 
in  England.  The  Quakers,  men  and  women,  were 
stripped  to  the  waist,  tied  to  a  cart's  tail,  and  whipped 
from  town  to  town  ;  they  were  whipped  with  pitched 
ropes,  branded  in  the  hand,  their  ears  cut  off,  and 
four  of  them,  including  a  woman,  were  hung. 

All  these  sufferings  in  England  and  other  countries 
are  described  in  great  detail  by  the  Quaker  historians 
Sewell,  Gough,  Janney,  and  especially  Besse.  The 
Quakers  were  very  careful  to  preserve  in  writing  full 
accounts  of  all  persecutions  and  sufferings  at  the 
time  of  their  occurrence.  Although  they  opposed 
learning  and  the  higher  education,  there  seems  to 
have  been  none  of  the  smaller  sects  that  described 
and  argued  their  religion  so  much  in  print.  In  the 
year  1708,  as  Janney  tells  us,  when  they  had  been 
in  existence  only  about  half  a  century,  a  catalogue 
of  their  books,  published  by  John  Whiting,  contains 

88 


THE  QUAKERS 

the  names  of  five  hundred  and  twenty-eight  writers, 
and  the  titles  of  two  thousand  eight  hundred  books 
and  tracts. 

In  this  way  they  made  a  deep  and  powerful  im- 
pression on  their  time,  and  their  liberal  views,  their 
simple  way  of  stating  the  Trinity  and  the  divinity  of 
Christ,  their  insistence  on  the  spirituality  of  Chris- 
tianity as  opposed  to  ecclesiastical  forms  and  dogmas, 
has  now  long  since  spread  to  other  religious  bodies, 
and  is  the  general  belief  of  modern  times. 

They  not  only  took  care  that  all  their  sufferings 
should  be  fully  recorded  and  known,  but  their  con- 
duct in  never  avoiding  punishment  was  unusual. 
The  Presbyterians,  Independents,  Roman  Catholics, 
and  other  dissenting  bodies  thought  it  no  disgrace, 
when  the  laws  were  unusually  severe  against  them, 
to  go  into  hiding,  to  cease  to  practise  their  religion 
for  a  time,  or  to  hold  secret  meetings.  But  the 
Quakers  would  never  hold  secret  meetings,  and  it 
was  a  point  of  honor  with  them  never  to  abstain 
from  the  open  performance  of  their  faith,  no  mat- 
ter how  much  the  magistrates  stirred  up  the  laws 
against  them.  For  the  cautious  conduct  of  the 
other  dissenters  they  had  a  supreme  contempt,  and 
referred  to  it  sarcastically  as  "  Christian  prudence." 
A  Quaker  meeting  might  be  raided  by  the  soldiers 
and  constables,  and  the  house  demolished,  but  the 
following  Sunday  those  that  remained  uncaptured 
would  be  found  holding  a  meeting  on  its  ruins, 
where  they  were  again  an  easy  prey  to  the  officials. 

This  extraordinary  stubbornness  exasperated  the 
authorities  against  them  more  than  ever,  for  it  was  a 

89 


THE   TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

burden  to  arrest  and  imprison  so  many  of  them. 
They  filled  up  the  jails,  and  it  seemed  impossible  to 
check  them  as  the  other  dissenters  were  checked 
and  driven  out  of  sight  by  punishing  a  few  as 
examples.  The  Quakers  were  determined  that  if 
they  were  to  be  suppressed  by  imprisonment,  it 
would  be  not  by  examples,  but  by  imprisoning 
every  individual  Quaker  in  the  country ;  and  even 
then  they  would  hold  meetings  in  the  jails  until 
they  had  all  died  of  dirt  and  disease. 

The  world  at  first  laughed  at  this  impolitic  obsti- 
nacy, then  wondered  at  it,  and  in  the  end  was  filled 
with  profound  respect  and  admiration  for  the  people 
who  lived  up  to  it  for  nearly  forty  years.  The 
Quakers  seem  to  have  been  built  up  into  their  un- 
usually strong  position  largely  by  this  heroic  prin- 
ciple of  conduct.  It  was,  indeed,  a  thoroughly 
Anglo-Saxon  trait,  and  could  have  been  exhibited 
by  no  other  race. 

The  punishments  in  England,  beginning  with  the 
Commonwealth  times,  were  persisted  in  until  1672, 
when  Charles  II.,  by  proclamation,  suspended  the 
execution  of  all  penal  laws  against  dissenters,  and 
released  from  prison  about  four  hundred  Quakers. 
But  this  relief  lasted  only  for  about  a  year.  In 
1673  the  informers  returned  to  their  business,  and 
the  prisons  were  again  filled  until  James  II.  came  to 
the  throne  in  1685.  He  released  some  thirteen 
hundred  Quakers  who  were  then  in  prison,  and 
stopped  the  suits  which  were  then  in  progress  to  fine 
or  imprison  several  hundred  more.  In  1687  he 
issued  his  famous  "Declaration  of  Indulgence,"  by 

90 


THE  QUAKERS 

which,  like  Charles  II.,  he  suspended  all  the  penal 
laws  against  dissenters.  But  this  raised  a  great 
constitutional  question  of  his  right  to  suspend  any 
laws,  a  question  in  which  William  Penn  took,  as  we 
shall  see,  an  important  part. 

There  was,  however,  no  more  persecution  of 
Quakers.  It  had  practically  ceased  during  the  reign 
of  King  James.  But  the  Quakers  were  not  legally 
secured  in  their  rights  until  1688,  the  first  year  of 
the  reign  of  William  III.,  when  the  act  was  passed 
abolishing  all  penalties  against  Protestants  and  estab- 
lishing the  religious  liberty  which  has  since  prevailed 
in  England. 

For  a  period  of  almost  forty  years  from  the  time 
of  the  civil  war  until  the  reign  of  James  II.,  the 
Quakers  had  been  harried  and  punished,  thousands 
of  them  despoiled  of  their  property,  thousands  of 
them  confined  in  the  loathsome  prisons  of  that  age ; 
and  about  five  thousand,  as  Penn  estimated,  died 
of  disease  from  confinement  in  those  prisons.  This 
severity  accomplished  in  part,  no  doubt,  its  pur- 
pose :  somewhat  lessened  their  numbers,  and  kept 
their  belief  from  spreading  as  far  as  it  might  have 
gone.  But  it  utterly  failed  to  suppress  them.  They 
endured  those  forty  years  of  suffering,  increased  in 
numbers,  won  the  respect  of  the  world  by  their 
heroism,  developed  their  doctrine,  discipline,  and 
organization,  and  their  faith  spread  from  the  lower 
to  the  middle  classes. 

Their  eccentricities  of  conduct,  their  bottle-break- 
ing, brimstone-burning,  and  street-preaching  passed 
away.     They  became  a  sedate,  sober,  thrifty  people, 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

of  most  exemplary  lives,  and  most  earnest  in  all 
good  works.  They  were  leaders  in  the  most  ad- 
vanced philanthropic  movements  of  the  age.  Be- 
sides their  persistent  and  sincere  advocacy  of  religious 
liberty,  they  were  the  first  advocates  of  the  abolition 
of  negro  slavery,  and  they  never  faltered  in  their 
purpose  until  slavery  had  ceased  to  exist  in  the 
British  possessions  and  in  the  United  States. 

They  were  the  first  prison  reformers,  a  work  sug- 
gested to  them  by  the  experience  and  sufferings  of 
their  own  people  amid  the  horrors  of  the  English 
prisons  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Men,  women, 
and  children  were  crowded  together  in  these  prisons 
mingled  with  the  vilest  and  most  degraded  criminals, 
twenty  or  more  of  them  sleeping  together  in  one 
room,  damp,  cold,  and  indescribably  filthy.  The 
Quakers  aroused  public  sentiment  first  to  alleviate, 
and  then  to  change  this  condition.  They  started 
the  idea  that  a  prison  should  be  a  workhouse,  and 
many  of  the  early  Quakers  when  imprisoned  fol- 
lowed their  trades  of  shoemaking  or  tailoring  as  far 
as  circumstances  would  allow.  They  established, 
also,  the  principle  that  a  prison  should  be  a  reforma- 
tory, a  place  of  moral  improvement  instead  of  a 
punishment  by  dirt  and  disease,  and  deeper  moral 
degradation  than  could  be  found  outside  of  its 
walls. 

In  connection  with  their  work  of  prison  reform, 
they  opposed  the  indiscriminate  manner  in  which 
the  death  penalty  was  inflicted  for  minor  offences. 
In  England  at  that  time  death  was  the  punishment 
for  over  two  hundred  and  fifty  crimes.     The  Quakers 

92 


THE   QUAKERS 

argued  in  favor  of  reducing  the  number  to  two, — 
murder  and  treason, — and  wished  even  to  abolish 
capital  punishment  altogether. 

Although  in  their  origin,  and  for  a  long  time 
afterwards,  they  were  opposed  to  higher  education, 
colleges,  and  learning,  they  have  in  modern  times 
greatly  changed  in  this  respect,  especially  in  Penn- 
sylvania, where  the  Philadelphia  Quakers  have  made 
most  successful  efforts  in  the  best  sort  of  education, 
as  their  colleges  at  Bryn  Mawr,  Haverford,  and 
Swarthmore  clearly  prove.  They  have  interested 
themselves  in  the  education  of  women,  and  also  in 
women's  rights,  which  is  the  natural  out-growth  of 
the  liberty  always  allowed  by  them  to  women  in 
preaching  and  in  the  conduct  of  church  affairs. 

It  is  no  doubt  true  that,  although  they  have 
engaged  in  all  these  liberal  movements,  they  have 
been  narrow  in  their  views,  and  have  gone  about 
their  work  in  a  narrow  way.  Their  long  oppo- 
sition to  higher  education  would  easily  account  for 
this.  Nevertheless,  it  is  also  true  that  they  have 
produced  some  very  remarkable  and  very  broad- 
minded  men.  William  Penn  and  John  Bright  are 
the  most  noticeable  instances  in  England  ;  and  in 
America  the  list  is  a  long  one  :  Benjamin  West,  one 
of  the  best  artists  of  his  time  ;  John  Bartram,  the 
first  American  botanist ;  two  of  our  best  poets, 
Whittier  and  Bayard  Taylor ;  John  Dickinson,  the 
author  of  the  "  Farmer's  Letters  in  the  Revolution  ;" 
two  of  the  ablest  generals  of  the  Revolution,  Greene 
and  Mifflin  ;  and  Edward  Cope,  a  modem  Philadel- 
phian  of  much  eminence  in  science.     There  should 

93 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

also  be  added  to  the  list  Ezra  Cornell,  who  founded 
the  great  university  in  New  York  which  bears  his 
name ;  and  Lindley  Murray,  the  grammarian. 

The  Quaker  belief,  although  opposed  to  the  higher 
learning  and  open  to  the  charge  of  narrowness,  and 
in  its  early  stages  to  the  charge  of  eccentricity,  was 
nevertheless  a  rationalistic  movement.  Lecky  has 
described  it  as  a  distorted  rationalism.  It  was  an 
heroic  attempt  to  reform,  advance,  and  liberalize  the 
age.  It  was  the  last  great  wave  or  impulse  of  the 
Reformation,  a  violent  and  one  might  say  an  hys- 
terical effort  to  return  to  the  primitive  Christianity 
of  the  first  two  centuries.  In  its  day  it  possessed 
great  attractions  for  honest  minds  like  William  Penn 
or  Robert  Barclay,  who,  as  college-bred  men,  were 
weary  of  seeing  education  prostituted  to  the  service 
of  tyranny,  superstition,  and  fraud  ;  who  wished  to 
see  religion  totally  divorced  from  politics  as  well  as 
from  priestcraft,  and  established  on  a  permanent 
basis  of  civil  and  religious  liberty. 


94 


VI 

CAVALIER    OR    QUAKER  ;    OR    BOTH 

But  whatever  we  may  think  of  the  Quakers  after 
an  impartial  survey  of  their  whole  career,  there  is 
no  doubt  that  in  the  year  1661  they  were  generally 
regarded  as  a  despised,  eccentric,  street-  and  field- 
preaching,  wandering  sect,  continually  punished  by 
fine  and  imprisonment  under  the  law.  What  could 
there  be  in  such  people  that  would  attract  to  them 
William  Penn,  a  youth  of  the  upper  class  enjoying 
his  athletic  sports  and  studies  at  an  upper-class 
Church  of  England  college?  The  only  answer 
would  seem  to  be  that  the  boy  was  born  with  a 
certain  sincere  earnestness,  a  serious-mindedness, 
and  a  natural  inclination  for  religion.  There  was 
also  evidently  in  his  nature  a  strong  basis  of  hero- 
ism, which  he  had  gained,  no  doubt,  by  inheritance. 
It  cost  him  but  little  effort  to  dare  to  follow  the 
leading  of  his  powerful  and,  indeed,  passionate  re- 
ligious feeling. 

He  had  never,  so  far  as  can  be  discovered,  been 
under  the  dominion  of  much  dogma.  His  associ- 
ations in  his  boyhood's  home  at  Wanstead  had,  as 
we  have  already  said,  been  Puritan.  He  was  already 
inclined  to  rely  on  his  own  inward  convictions  ;  and 
sincere  and  earnest  as  he  was,  and  disposed  to  take 

95 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

religion  literally,  he  found  something  congenial 
among  the  people  who  relied  more  than  any  others 
on  inward  feeling  and  conviction  as  against  dogmas 
and  ceremonies.  Before  long  he  also  discovered 
that  for  an  educated  mind  the  suggestion  of  return- 
ing to  primitive  Christianity  was  a  grand  and  fruitful 
thought  Among  the  primitive  Christians  of  the 
first  three  centuries  could  be  found  liberty  and  a 
multitude  of  inspiring  philosophic  and  religious  ideas. 
On  these  the  intellect  and  moral  nature  could  freely 
exercise  themselves  without  the  degradation  of  feel- 
ing that  they  were  being  prostituted  in  the  service 
of  priestly  humbug  and  superstition. 

He  wandered  unconsciously  into  this  influence 
which  was  destined  to  seize  him  sooner  or  later. 
The  Quakers  had  already  been  up  and  down  in 
Oxford,  and  not  a  few  students  had  succumbed. 
But  it  was  the  preaching  of  Thomas  Loe,  to  whom 
he  one  day  accidentally  listened,  that  touched  Penn. 
He  and  some  other  undergraduates  abandoned  the 
chapel  services  of  the  colleges  and  went  to  hear  the 
Quakers  ;  and  it  has  even  been  said  that  they  held 
private  prayer-meetings  among  themselves.  For  this 
neglect  of  the  college  chapel  services  they  had  to 
pay  fines  ;  but,  nothing  deterred,  they  went  still  fur- 
ther, and  there  is  a  tradition  that  Penn  and  Robert 
Spencer,  afterwards  Lord  Sunderland,  in  their  hatred 
of  outward  forms,  "  fell  upon  those  students  who 
appeared  in  surplices,  and  he  and  they  together  tore 
them  everywhere  over  their  heads.'* 

From  a  letter  written  by  Penn  in  1683  to  Lord 
Sunderland,  it  appears  that  they  first  made   each 

96 


CAVALIER  OR   QUAKER;    OR   BOTH 

other's  acquaintance  in  France  in  1663,  after  Penn 
had  left  Oxford,  so  that  the  tradition  associating  them 
as  companions  in  the  attack  on  the  surplices  may  be 
wrong.  But  it  is  extremely  probable  that  Penn 
took  some  pronounced  part  in  that  general  opposi- 
tion to  the  surplices  which  prevailed  among  the 
students  ;  for  we  hear  that  he  was  expelled  from  the 
college  for  some  conduct  relating  to  his  religious 
opinions.  This  expulsion  has  been  doubted  by  his 
biographer,  Stoughton  ;  but  Penn  himself,  in  speak- 
ing of  his  early  religious  Hfe,  said,  "  Of  my  persecu- 
tion at  Oxford,  and  how  the  Lord  sustained  me  in 
the  midst  of  that  hellish  darkness  and  debauchery  ; 
of  my  being  banished  the  college."  * 

It  is  difficult  to  tell  whether  this  word  banished 
means  that  he  was  suspended,  as  it  would  now  be 
called,  for  a  time  or  expelled ;  but  it  probably 
means  expelled.  He  seems  to  have  been  at  Christ 
Church  about  two  years,  and  this  banishment  brought 
his  course  there  to  an  end.  Apparently  he  did  not 
altogether  neglect  the  studies  that  were  proper  for 
a  cavalier,  and  although  he  seems  to  have  been  a 
serious-minded  undergraduate  protesting  against  col- 
legiate debauchery,  and  more  and  more  imbued 
with  Quaker  influence,  he  did  not  reach  the  point 
of  actually  joining  the  sect.  From  entries  in  Pepys's 
diary,  the  admiral  seems  to  have  had  thoughts  of 
removing  his  son  to  Cambridge,  but  whether  for  the 
purpose  of  breaking  up  his  Quaker  notions  is  not 
clear. 

*  Journey  into  Holland  and  Germany  (Life  prefixed  to  Works), 
p.  92. 

7  97 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

When,  however,  Penn  finally  left  Oxford  and  re- 
turned to  his  father  in  London,  the  admiral  was 
gready  vexed  at  the  state  of  the  young  man's  feel- 
ings. He  went  wandering  about  the  city,  looking 
up  Quakers  and  consorting  with  them  ;  and  he  ap- 
peared to  have  no  taste  for  the  court  and  a  cavalier's 
life.  From  that  time  the  struggle  between  father 
and  son  reads  like  a  comedy.  The  father,  we  are 
told,  tried  persuasions  and  threats,  and  when  these 
proved  of  no  avail,  resorted  to  blows,  which  also 
failing  of  their  purpose,  he  fell  into  a  transport  of 
rage  and  drove  the  boy  from  his  house,  to  which, 
however,  he  was  afterwards  enabled  to  return  by  the 
intercession  of  his  mother.* 

This  account  has  been  described  by  Stoughton 
and  also  by  Granville  Penn  as  traditional  and  very 
much  exaggerated.  But  Penn  himself,  in  his  "  Jour- 
ney into  Holland  and  Germany,"  after  speaking  of 
his  banishment  from  college,  adds,  "  The  bitter 
usage  I  underwent  when  I  returned  to  my  father, 
whipping,  beating,  and  turning  out  of  doors  in 
1662." 

The  violence  and  turning  out  of  doors  proving  as 
unsuccessful  as  the  banishment  from  college,  a  rather 
lucky  thought  occurred  to  the  admiral.  He  would 
divert  the  boy's  mind  by  things  which  were  unlike 
religion.  So  he  sent  him  with  some  gay  people  of 
the  court  to  travel  in  France  in  the  hope  that  he 
would  pick  up  something  besides  fanaticism. 

This  hope  seems  to  have  been  partly  realized. 


*  Gough,  History  of  the  Quakers,  vol.  ii.  p.  214. 
98 


CAVALIER  OR   QUAKER;    OR  BOTH 

He  visited  Italy  as  well  as  France,  and  Pepys  de- 
scribes him  in  August,  1664,  soon  after  his  return. 

"  This  day  my  wife  tells  me  Mr  Pen,  Sir  William's  son,  is  come 
back  from  France  and  came  to  visit  her.  A  most  modish  person 
grown,  she  says,  a  fine  gentleman."     (Vol  iv.  pp.  228,  229.) 

"  After  dinner  comes  Mr.  Pen  to  visit  me,  and  staid  an  houre  talk- 
ing with  me.  I  perceive  something  of  learning  he  hath  got,  but  a 
great  deal  if  not  too  much  of  the  vanity  of  the  French  garbe  and 
affected  manner  of  speech  and  gait.  I  fear  all  real  profit  he  hath 
made  of  his  travel  will  signify  little."     (Vol.  iv.  p.  231.) 

Penn  at  this  time  was  no  doubt  a  fresh-faced 
young  Englishman  of  considerable  attractiveness  ; 
with  much  manner  and  conversation,  and  capable 
as  the  French  would  say  of  **  success  with  women." 
He  found  Mrs.  Pepys' s  society  so  agreeable  that 
Pepys  became  very  jealous. 

"  Against  my  will  left  them  together,  but  God  knows  without  any 
reason  of  fear  in  my  conscience  of  any  evil  between  them,  but  such 
is  my  natural  folly."     (Vol.  iv.  p.  243.     See  also  p.  236.) 

A  hardened  old  rascal  like  Pepys,  who  was  con- 
tinually making  love  to  other  men's  wives,  was 
naturally  very  suspicious.  But  nothing  came  of  it, 
and  he  afterwards  speaks  of  young  Penn  as  very 
merry  talking  of  his  travels  and  French  humors. 

From  a  letter  of  P.  Gibson  we  learn  what  was 
part  of  Penn's  new  French  garb.  "  I  remember  your 
honor  very  well,"  Gibson  writes,  "when  you  newly 
came  out  of  France  and  wore  pantaloon  breeches." 

Penn  had,  in  fact,  become  what  we  would  now 
call  a  Franco-maniac.  He  spoke  French  fluently, 
and  the  admiral  was  very  much  pleased  with  his 
polite  and  courtly  behavior.     We  read  also  that  he 

99 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

fought  with  a  desperado  in  the  streets  of  Paris,  and 
was  skilful  enough  in  fencing  to  knock  his  opponent's 
sword  from  his  hand.  But  he  declined  to  stab  to 
death  his  disarmed  enemy,  as  he  had  a  right  to  do 
under  the  code.  He  had  without  doubt  become  a 
good  deal  of  a  cavalier  ;  and  this  quality  he  retained 
all  his  life.  But,  strange  to  say,  while  travelling  in 
France  he  went  to  the  Protestant  college  at  Sau- 
mur,  where  for  a  few  months  he  studied  theology 
under  Moses  Amyrault,  a  famous  divine  of  that  time. 
Whatever  qualities  the  father  might  add  to  his  char- 
acter, the  boy  was  evidently  determined  to  follow  his 
own  religious  bent 

The  doctrine  taught  by  Amyrault  was  a  sort  of 
modified  and  liberal  Calvinism,  deemed  rank  heresy 
by  many  Calvinists.  But  Penn  seems  to  have  been 
unaffected  by  it  He  studied  general  theological 
history,  and  apparently  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
himself  a  more  enlightened  understanding  of  the 
whole  subject  of  religion.  He  studied  particularly 
the  writings  of  the  early  fathers  of  the  church,  that 
he  might  the  better  understand  that  primitive  Chris- 
tianity which  the  Quakers  professed,  and  which  was 
always  uppermost  in  his  thoughts.  He  was  trying 
to  see  in  the  Quakerism  by  which  his  ardent  young 
heart  was  touched  something  deeper  and  broader 
than  the  eccentricities  which  aroused  so  much  hatred 
and  punishment  He  was  looking  for  a  religion 
which  an  honest  educated  gentleman  could  follow 
without  being  a  sycophantic  Churchman,  a  shuffling, 
traitorous  Roman  Catholic,  or  a  whining,  malignant 
Puritan. 

lOO 


CAVALIER  OR   QUAKER;    OR   BOTH 

He  seems  to  have  always  looked  at  the  new  faith 
in  a  very  different  light  from  that  which  inspired  the 
rugged  unlettered  Fox,  and  it  is  impossible  to  find 
in  Penn  any  of  Fox's  visions,  miracles,  or  fanaticism. 
Penn  wrote  largely  against  oaths  ;  but  very  little  on 
hat  honor  or  on  what  now  seems  the  lighter  and 
least  important  part  of  Quaker  doctrine.  He  was 
trying  to  build  on  larger  foundations  and  with  more 
substantial  and  lasting  material. 

But  he  had  not  yet  joined  the  Quakers.  It  seems 
probable  that  he  was  not  yet  altogether  satisfied 
with  them.  Judging  from  what  he  afterwards  re- 
lated of  himself,  he  was  unable  at  this  time  to  find 
any  form  of  religion  that  fully  satisfied  him.  He 
had  become  a  Seeker.  But  he  went  on  investi- 
gating, and  for  one  so  young  he  investigated  with 
considerable  thoroughness. 

Soon  after  his  return  from  France  his  father  went 
with  the  Duke  of  York  to  fight  the  Dutch,  and 
Penn  meantime  had  been  entered  a  student  at  Lin- 
coln's Inn  to  study  law.  This  was  in  continuation 
of  the  father's  careful  plan  of  education.  His  son, 
who  was  to  become  a  courtier  and  public  man,  and 
possibly  hold  an  important  office  under  the  crown, 
must  have  some  general  idea  of  law.  So  young 
Penn,  who  had  been  to  college  at  Oxford,  studied 
theology  in  France,  and  travelled  through  a  large 
part  of  Europe,  was  now  to  be  further  broadened  by 
another  study.  It  will  be  interesting  to  see  how 
a  man  trained  in  this  way  will  view  the  struggling 
Quaker  faith. 

The  plague  which   broke  out   in   London   inter- 

lOI 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

rupted  the  law  studies,  and  Penn,  like  many  others 
who  could  escape  from  the  city,  retired  to  the 
country.  The  cavalier  side  of  his  character  seems 
to  have  found  little  employment  in  the  silence  of  the 
fields,  and,  as  he  afterwards  related,  the  scenes  of  the 
plague  had  made  a  serious  impression  on  him.  His 
contemplative  and  religious  mood  began  to  get  the 
upper  hand  again  ;  and  when  his  father  returned  he 
saw  evident  signs  of  a  bad  relapse. 

He  thought  he  would  try  again  the  remedy  that 
had  already  been  successful  with  this  disease.  He 
sent  the  youth  to  join  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  who, 
as  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  kept  at  Dublin  a 
court  of  no  little  gayety  and  splendor.  A  remedy 
often  used,  however,  is  apt  to  lose  its  power  ;  and 
it  seems  this  second  dose  of  gayety  was  not  ac- 
complishing all  that  was  expected.  A  variation  of 
it  was  tried,  which  came  very  near  being  entirely 
successful. 

The  youth  was  given  some  serious  worldly  work 
to  do.  The  admiral  was  governor  of  Kinsale,  in  the 
county  of  Cork,  far  to  the  south  from  Dublin,  and 
close  to  that  famous  headland  still  a  guide  to  sailors, 
and  still  known  as  the  "Old  Head  of  Kinsale." 
There  was  a  fort  within  it  and  a  company  of  sol- 
diers, of  which  the  admiral  was  nominal  captain,  in 
much  the  same  way  that  he  was  governor  of  Kinsale, 
this  being  one  of  those  posts  of  profit,  honor,  and 
very  little  trouble  which  he  held  by  favor  of  the 
crown,  and  constituted  part  of  his  Irish  estates.  He 
gave  his  son  some  sort  of  oversight  of  this  feudal 
holding   and   the   district   round   it,  and  the  young 

I02 


.^^ 


CAVALIER  OR  QUAKER;    OR  BOTH 

man  seems  also  to  have  held  an  office  called  "  clerk 
of  the  cheque,  Kinsale. "  But  in  these  positions  he 
was  still  under  the  command  of  the  Duke  of  Or- 
mond  as  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland. 

The  responsibility  and  interest  of  his  new  occupa- 
tions, the  pleasure  of  doing  real  work  in  the  world, 
drew  his  mind  so  far  from  his  religious  studies  that 
when  a  mutiny  broke  out  among  the  troops  at  Car- 
rickfergus  he  took  a  vigorous  part  in  quelling  itt 
The  Duke  of  Ormond  was  so  pleased  with  his  con- 
duct that  he  suggested  that  he  be  made  captain  of 
his  father's  company  of  soldiers. 

Judging  from  the  letter  written  by  the  duke,  it 
seems  that  the  father  himself  had  at  one  time 
thought  of  this.  Young  Penn  seems  to  have  been 
eager  for  it  But  the  father's  answer  implies  that 
he  thought  his  son's  vanity  had  become  inflated 
with  success,  and  that  he  was  too  young  for  such  a 
command.  "As  to  the  tender  made  by  his  grace 
the  lord  lieutenant,"  he  says,  "  concerning  the  fort 
at  Kinsale,  I  wish  your  youthful  desires  mayn't  out- 
run your  discretion." 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  armor  portrait  of  Penn 
already  described  in  the  first  chapter  is  supposed  to 
have  been  painted.  Public  business  and  the  acci- 
dental arousing  of  the  fighting  qualities  he  had  in- 
herited from  his  father  were  drawing  him  very  de- 
cidedly away  from  religion.  "The  glory  of  the 
world,"  he  afterwards  said,  "  overtook  me,  and  I  was 
even  ready  to  give  myself  unto  it."  If  his  father 
had  yielded  on  that  one  point,  and  let  him  be  captain 
of  the  company,  the  result  might  have  been  perma- 

103 


THE   TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

nent,  and  there  would  be  no  necessity  for  writing  this 
biography. 

•  But  one  day  Penn  went  to  Cork  on  business,  and 
hearing  that  his  old  friend,  Thomas  Loe,  whom  he 
had  known  at  Oxford,  was  to  preach,  he  went  to 
hear  him.  The  burden  of  the  sermon  was,  *'  There 
is  a  faith  which  overcomes  the  world,  and  there  is  a 
faith  which  is  overcome  by  the  world,"  and  Penn 

♦  was  deeply  moved.  His  faith  was  evidently  being 
overcome  by  the  world.  We  can  readily  imagine 
how  the  fighting  spirit,  which  had  been  so  recently 
aroused  within  him,  would  now  combine  with  his 
natural  religious  fervor  and  carry  him  completely 
away.  Should  he  overcome  or  be  overcome.  The 
fire  in  his  blood  would  admit  of  only  one  answer. 
The  doctrine  struck  home,  and  Penn  never  again 
vacillated.     From  that  day  he  was  a  Quaker. 

The  methods  used  by  his  father  had,  however, 
gone  so  far  that  the  young  man's  character  had  been 
partially  formed  by  them.  He  was  double.  He  was 
both  a  cavalier  and  a  Quaker.  He  became  a  recog- 
nized leader  and  preacher,  the  author  of  numerous 
theological  works,  and  at  the  same  time  he  passed 
a  large  part  of  his  days  at  court,  would  dress  hand- 
somely on  occasions,  could  be  gay  and  jovial,  and 
took  part  in  politics  and  other  things  somewhat  in- 
consistent with  what  is  supposed  to  be  Quaker  doc- 
trine. So  much  was  this  side  of  his  character  de- 
veloped that  in  spite  of  his  great  abilities  his  sect 
were  at  the  time  of  the  revolution  of  1688  a  little 
inclined  to  dispense  with  his  services. 

This  double  nature  was  at  the  same  time  his 
104 


CAVALIER  OR  QUAKER;    OR  BOTH 

strength  and  his  weakness.  His  father  had  been 
double  in  politics,  belonging  first  to  the  Roundheads 
and  then  to  the  Royalists.  The  son  belonged  both 
to  the  world  and  to  religion,  not  to  one  after  the 
other,  but  to  both  at  the  same  time,  and  seems  to 
have  been  perfectly  sincere  in  both.  He  became 
that  apparently  impossible  combination,  a  Quaker 
courtier,  and  that  is  the  key  to  his  character. 

It  will  be  well  at  this  point  to  quote  the  whole  of 
the  passage  from  his  "Journey  into  Holland  and 
Germany,"  already  several  times  referred  to,  in  which 
he  sums  up  the  religious  history  of  his  youth. 

"  I  let  them  know  how  and  when  the  Lord  first  appeared  unto  me, 
which  was  about  the  twelfth  year  of  my  age,  anno.  1656;  and 
how,  at  times,  betwixt  that  and  the  fifteenth,  the  Lord  visitpd  me, 
and  the  divine  impressions  he  gave  me  of  himself ;  of  my  perse- 
cution at  Oxford,  and  how  the  Lord  sustained  me  in  the  midst  of 
that  hellish  darkness  and  debauchery ;  of  my  being  banished  the 
college ;  the  bitter  usage  I  underwent  when  I  returned  to  my  father, 
whipping,  beating,  and  turning  out  of  doors  in  1662.  Of  the 
Lord's  dealings  with  me  in  France,  and  in  the  time  of  the  great 
plague  in  London  ;  in  fine,  the  deep  sense  he  gave  me  of  the  vanity 
of  this  world,  of  the  irreligiousness  of  the  religious  of  it ;  then,  of 
my  mournful  and  bitter  cries  to  him  that  he  would  show  me  his  own 
way  of  life  and  salvation,  and  my  resolution  to  follow  him,  whatever 
reproaches  of  suffering  should  attend  me,  and  that  with  great  rev- 
erence and  brokeness  of  spirit.  How,  after  all  this,  the  glory  of  the 
world  overtook  me,  and  I  was  even  ready  to  give  up  myself  unto  it, 
seeing  as  yet  no  such  thing  as  the  primitive  spirit  and  church  on  the 
earth ;  and  being  ready  to  faint  concerning  my  hope  of  the  resti- 
tution of  all  things."     (Life  prefixed  to  Works  (1726),  p.  92.) 

The  last  part  of  this  passage  shows  that  in  Penn's 
studies  and  thoughts  in  his  youth  the  struggle  was 
principally  to  find  the  original  spirit  and  essential  of 
Christianity,  or  as  he   puts  it  "  the  primitive  spirit 

105 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

and  church."  For  this  purpose  the  young  man  had 
sat  in  Quaker  meetings  and  studied  at  Saumur,  in 
France,  without  being  influenced  by  French  Gal- 
vanism. It  is  also  evident  that  in  his  early  ex- 
periences he  belonged  to  that  class  of  persons  who 
were  then  called  Seekers,  who  believed  that  all  forms 
of  Christianity  were  so  corrupted  as  to  be  invalid, 
and  that  a  new  revelation  must  be  awaited  ;  for 
he  speaks  of  his  deep  sense  of  the  "  irreligiousness 
of  the  rehgious,"  and  of  his  inability  to  find  any 
*'  such  thing  as  the  primitive  spirit  and  church  on 
the  earth." 


\ 


io6 


VII 


FIRST   IMPRISONMENT   AND    ROUGHNESS   OF   ENGLISH 

LIFE 

^  But  after  all  his  studies  and  experiences,  his  stu- 
dent life  at  Oxford,  his  travels  in  France  and  Italy, 
his  investigations  of  the  early  fathers  under  the  great 
professor  at  Saumur,  his  intercourse  with  gay  people 
in  Europe,  in  London,  and  with  the  Duke  of  Ormond 
in  Ireland,  his  public  employment  on  his  father's 
feudal  holding  at  Kinsale, — after  all  this,  and  after 
doubting  whether  there  was  any  true  or  valid  church 
on  earth,  and  after  considerable  knowledge  of  Quaker 
meetings,  Penn  made  the  final  decision  that  those 
Quakers  were  sufficiently  near  to  primitive  Chris- 
tianity to  justify  his  sacrificing  himself  in  the  cause 
which  they  had  at  heart.  / 

He  remained  in  Ireland  attending  to  his  father's 
affairs,  making  no  change  in  his  life  or  even  in*  his 
cavalier  dress  ;  but  he  attended  the  Quaker  meetings 
in  Cork.  Very  soon,  as  might  be  expected,  he  was 
caught  in  one  of  those  raids  which  were  constantly 
made  on  the  Quakers.  Several  constables.  Backed 
by  a  party  of  soldiers,  entered  the  meeting  where  he 
was,  September  3,  1667,  and  arrested  everybody  on 
the  old  charge  of  holding  a  riotous  assembly.  There 
is  an  apocryphal  story  that  a  soldier  first  entered  the 
meeting  to  disturb  it,  on  which  Penn  took  him  by 

107 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

the  collar  and  would  have  thrown  him  down-stairs 
if  some  prominent  members  had  not  interfered  on 
the  plea  that  such  conduct  would  be  inconsistent 
with  the  principles  of  their  religion. 

But  we  can  safely  reject  this  along  with  the  other 
tales  in  the  Harvey  manuscript  Penn  had  too  much 
sense  to  be  guilty  of  such  foolishness.  He  went 
with  the  others  before  the  mayor,  who,  observing  his 
dress,  offered  to  release  him  on  bond  for  his  good 
behavior.  This  he  refused,  and  argued  with  the 
mayor  on  the  unlawfulness  of  arresting  peaceable 
people  under  a  statute  which  was  intended  only  to 
suppress  the  Fifth  Monarchy  murderers.  He  was 
♦sent  to  prison,  and  there  addressed  an  admirable 
letter  to  the  Earl  of  Orrery,  Lord-President  of  Mun- 
ster,  asking  to  be  released.  He  argued  with  great 
dignity  and  spirit  on  the  unlawfulness  of  his  arrest, 
and  the  bad  policy  of  such  interference  with  people's 
religious  convictions. 

"  But  I  presume,  my  Lord,  the  acquaintance  you  have  had  with 
other  countries,  must  needs  have  furnished  you  with  this  infallible 
observation :  that  diversities  of  faith  and  worship  contribute  not  to 
the  disturbance  of  any  place,  where  moral  uniformity  is  barely  requi- 
site to  preserve  the  peace.  It  is  not  long  since  you  were  a  good 
solicitor  for  the  liberty  I  now  crave,  and  concluded  no  way  so  effectual 
to  improve  or  advantage  this  country,  as  to  dispense  with  freedom  in 
things  relating  to  conscience ;  and  I  suppose  were  it  riotous  or 
tumultuary,  as  by  some  vainly  imagined,  your  lordship's  inclination, 
as  well  as  duty,  would  entertain  a  very  remote  opinion.  My  humble 
supplication,  therefore,  to  you  is,  that  so  malicious  and  injurious  a 
practice  to  innocent  Englishmen,  may  not  receive  any  countenance 
or  encouragement  from  your  lordship,  for  as  it  is  contrary  to  the  prac- 
tice elsewhere,  and  a  bad  argument  to  invite  English  hither,  so,  with 
submission,  will  it  not  resemble  that  clemency  and  English  spirit, 
that  hath  hitherto  made  you  honorable." 

io8 


FIRST  IMPRISONMENT 

It  was  an  excellent  letter  for  a  youth  of  twenty- 
three.  But  what  a  scrape  he  was  in  !  What  a  talk 
and  scandal  there  must  have  been  among  the  grand 
people  of  the  Duke  of  Ormond's  court  at  DubHn 
when  it  was  known  that  their  late  companion,  young 
Penn,  the  son  of  the  admiral,  with  all  his  fine  clothes 
on,  was  caught  by  the  soldiers  in  a  Quaker  meeting  ! 
It  would  have  been  better  to  have  been  caught  in  a 
brothel  or  the  lowest  den  of  vice. 

To  save  him,  if  possible,  from  such  associations 
as  he  had  fallen  into,  the  Earl  of  Orrery  at  once  re- 
leased him,  and  often  afterwards  Penn  was  gently 
handled  by  the  government  because  he  was  a  cava- 
lier,^ and  cavaliers  could  not  bear  to  see  him  de- 
graded. 

The  admiral  began  to  hear  of  these  things,  and 

ordered  his  son  home.  He  promptly  appeared,  and 
as  there  was  no  change  in  his  dress  or  outward  ap- 
pearance for  some  time  nothing  was  said.  Pepys 
heard  of  his  return  from  that  voluble  gossip  Mrs. 
Turner. 

"  At  night  comes  Mrs.  Turner  to  see  us ;  and  then  among  other 
talk  she  tells  me  that  Mr  William  Pen  who  is  lately  come  over  from 
Ireland  is  a  Quaker  again,  or  some  very  melancholy  thing ;  that  he 
cares  for  no  company,  nor  comes  into  any ;  which  is  a  pleasant  thing 
after  his  being  abroad  so  long  and  his  father  such  a  hypocritical 
rogue  and  at  this  time  an  atheist."     (Vol.  vii.  p.  253.) 

Before  long,  however,  the  admiral  noticed  that 
his  son  always  kept  his  hat  on,  at  that  time  a  serious 
disrespect  to  a  parent  An  explanation  was  de- 
manded, and  Penn  openly  declared  his  principles, 
and  announced  that  nothing  would  now  restrain  him 

109 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

from  remaining  a  Quaker.  Entreaties  again  proving 
of  no  avail,  the  admiral  asked  if  he  would  not  at 
least  take  off  his  hat  in  the  presence  of  his  father, 
the  king,  and  the  Duke  of  York. 

Such  an  offer  of  compromise  on  the  part  of  the 
admiral  was  unusual,  and  must  have  been  the  result 
of  many  days'  controversy  with  his  son.  Beaten  at 
every  point,  the  distressed  father  at  last  pathetically 
pleaded  for  the  respect  due  to  himself  and  to  the 
two  persons,  the  king  and  the  Duke  of  York,  on 
whom  the  family  fortunes  depended.  He  thought 
he  could  at  least  secure  this  ;  and,  indeed,  his  unruly 
young  Quaker  yielded  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  would 
take  time  to  consider. 

This  infuriated  the  father,  because  he  thought  his 
son  was  going  off  to  consult  the  Quakers.  But 
Penn  replied  that  he  would  consult  with  none  of 
them,  and  before  long,  after  much  inward  conflict, 
respectfully  told  his  father  that  he  could  not  comply 
with  his  request. 

The  admiral  was  again  in  a  rage,  and  turned  his 
son  out  of  doors.  Penn  wandered  about,  living  at 
the  houses  of  friends  and  supplied  secretly  by  his 
mother  with  money.  The  admiral,  of  course,  had  to 
relent  He  allowed  his  son  to  come  home  to  live  ; 
but  treated  him  almost  as  a  stranger. 

Penn  was  now  to  begin  his  life's  work  in  earnest ; 
and  it  may  be  well  to  consider  what  England  was 
at  this  time,  its  ideals  and  its  manners.  It  was 
very  different  from  the  England  which  we  see  to- 
day on  our  summer  holiday  trips  across  the  Atlantic. 
Instead  of  the  present  population  of  thirty  million, 

no 


FIRST  IMPRISONMENT 

it  had  scarcely  five  million,  hardly  as  much  as  the 
present  population  of  Pennsylvania.  London,  in- 
stead of  containing  over  four  million  people,  had 
only  about  five  hundred  thousand,  and  was  only  a 
trifle  larger  than  the  modem  Boston  or  Baltimore. 
The  five  million  people  were  gathered  in  the  south- 
em  part  of  the  island,  south  of  a  line  drawn  across 
the  country  from  Liverpool  to  the  H umber  River. 
North  of  this  line  to  the  Scottish  border  was  a 
wilderness  where  the  Scotch  pillaged  and  marauded 
and  the  mosstroopers  stole  cattle,  where  the  scat- 
tered inhabitants  lived  in  a  state  of  barbarism  with 
their  blood-hounds  to  track  robbers,  and,  like  the 
early  settlers  of  the  American  wilderness,  adminis- 
tered swift  and  sure  justice  on  horse-thieves. 

Even  south  of  this  wilderness,  where  most  of  the 
people  were  to  be  found,  the  face  of  the  country 
was  wild.  There  were  vast  forests  and  moors  cov- 
ered with  furze.  A  great  deal  of  the  country  was 
overflowed,  and  this  fen  land,  which  has  now  been 
neary  all  drained,  was  the  home  of  immense  quanti- 
ties of  wild-fowl.  The  country  people  lived  on 
widely  scattered  rude  farms,  with  occasional  baronial 
castles.  One  entered  this  rough,  wild  country  as 
soon  as  he  left  the  outskirts  of  a  village  or  town  ; 
and  you  would  have  looked  in  vain  at  that  time  for 
the  highly  cultivated  land,  the  trim  farms,  and  country 
places,  with  their  green  hedge-rows  and  fat  cattle, 
which  the  modern  railway  tourist  now  passes  in  such 
endless  succession. 

In  fact,  the  English  people  of  that  day  lived  al- 
most as  much  in  the  wilderness  and  as  close  to  wild 

III 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

nature  as  those  who  had  emigrated  to  America.  On 
any  of  the  great  highways  of  travel  every  one,  as 
night  came  on,  hastened  to  reach  an  inn,  for  there 
was  no  road  that  was  free  from  highwaymen. 
Evelyn,  in  going  from  Tunbridge  Wells  to  London, 
was  waylaid  and  left  bound  in  a  solitary  place  tor- 
mented by  the  blazing  sun  and  the  swarms  of  flies 
and  ants.  His  account  of  his  capture  and  escape 
reads  like  the  tales  of  similar  adventures  at  the  same 
period  among  the  Indians  in  America. 

Within  a  couple  of  hours'  drive  of  London,  great 
herds  of  fallow-deer  ranged  through  the  forests ; 
and  within  a  couple  of  days'  journey  could  be  found 
the  magnificent  red  deer,  almost  as  large  as  an 
American  elk,  and  wandering  in  herds  that  some- 
times numbered  five  hundred.  The  wild  bull  with 
a  white  mane  wandered  in  the  woods  of  the  more 
remote  districts.  On  the  open  downs  bustards,  a 
bird  as  large  as  the  American  wild  turkey,  roamed 
in  large  flocks  and  were  hunted  with  greyhounds. 
Fox-hunting  had  not  then  become  the  national 
sport ;  and  the  fox,  instead  of  being  carefully  pre- 
served, was  slaughtered  by  hundreds  as  a  pest.  The 
wild  boars,  which  had  been  very  numerous  and  were 
preserved  for  the  sport  of  the  king  and  nobility, 
were  exterminated  by  the  farmers  during  the  civil 
war. 

Nor  had  England  then  become  famous  for  her 
breeds  of  horses  and  cattle.  The  native  horses  were 
small  and  cheap.  The  best  for  the  saddle  were  im- 
ported from  Spain,  and  those  used  for  draught  were 
brought  from  Flanders.      As  these  heavy  Flemish 

112 


FIRST  IMPRISONMENT 

mares  drew  the  great  lumbering  coaches  through  the 
narrow  streets  of  London,  splashing  the  offal  and  filth 
of  the  kennel  on  every  side,  pedestrians  rushed  to 
the  wall  and  turned  their  backs.  At  night  those 
same  streets  were  unlighted,  and  one  might  very 
well  have  been  safer  on  the  country  roads.  Thieves 
and  footpads  might  be  met  at  any  turn,  or  roistering 
young  fellows  who  had  started  out  to  beat  the  watch, 
upset  sedan  chairs,  and  insult  women.  If  these 
dangers  were  escaped,  one  might  still  at  any  moment 
receive  the  contents  of  a  bucket  emptied  from  a 
garret  window. 

We  should  naturally  expect  that  the  dress  of  the 
people  would  conform  to  their  surroundings,  or  be 
of  color  that  would  least  show  the  accidents  through 
which  they  might  have  passed.  But,  on  the  contrary, 
they  travelled  their  rough  roads,  during  half  the  year 
almost  impassable  with  mud,  ran  the  gauntlet  of 
highwaymen  or  the  showers  of  filth  in  London's 
streets  in  most  fantastic  clothes  of  scarlet,  blue,  and 
yellow,  with  feathers  in  their  hats.  "I  saw,"  says 
Pepys,  "the  King,  the  Dukes  and  all  their  attend- 
ants go  forth  in  the  rain  to  the  City  and  it  bedraggled 
many  a  fine  suit  of  clothes."  *  Pepys' s  description 
of  his  clothes,  with  the  long  list  of  their  now  mean- 
ingless names,  and  the  way  in  which  he  developed 
his  costume  with  his  increasing  prosperity,  seems 
ludicrous  enough  now,  but  was  an  important  matter 
with  him. 

All  sorts    of   fashions    broke    out   among   them. 

*  Pcpys's  Diary,  ed.  of  1893,  ^ol*  ^'  P«  193' 
«  113 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

French  clothes  became  an  extravagant  tyranny 
which  Charles  II.  determined  to  break ;  and  as 
clothes  were  then  as  important  as  politics,  he  an- 
nounced his  resolution  to  his  council.  He  would 
start  a  new  and  modest  fashion  which  should  never 
be  altered  :  •  *  a  long  cassock,  close  to  the  body,  of 
black  cloth,  and  pinked  with  white  silk  under  it,  and 
a  coat  over  it,  and  the  legs  ruffled  with  black  riband 
like  a  pigeon's  leg."  But  Louis  XIV.  and  the 
French  nobility,  to  check  this  revolt  against  the  su- 
premacy of  their  nation,  put  their  footmen  in  the 
new  costume.  It  became  a  livery,  and  no  English 
gentleman  dare  wear  it. 

These  gay  people,  with  their  embroidered  and 
velvet  coats,  fringed  gloves,  camlet  cloaks,  gold  and 
silver  buttons,  and  huge  wigs,  which  were  bedraggled 
in  the  rain  and  mud  of  London,  were  not  so  partic- 
ular when  they  went  to  bed.  Night-clothes  were 
not  usually  worn,  and  people  went  to  bed  stark 
naked.  Possibly  some  of  the  upper  classes  may 
have  worn  night-clothes,  for  we  read  in  Pepys's 
diary  and  other  books  of  the  time  that  it  was  a 
recognized  custom  for  ladies  while  in  bed  to  receive 
visitors  of  both  sexes,  as  well  as  to  receive  visits  while 
they  were  dressing  ;  and  the  same  custom  prevailed 
in  France. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  language  habitually 
used  to  ladies  by  the  cavaliers  was  of  a  plain-spoken 
coarseness  and  licentiousness  that  has  long  since 
passed  away  ;  and  the  ladies  in  their  turn  sang  songs 
and  made  jests  which  would  now  in  the  lowest  va- 
riety theatre  be  instantly  suppressed  by  the  police. 

114 


FIRST  IMPRISONMENT 

There  were,  of  course,  exceptions.  There  were 
ladies  and  cavaHers  who  protested  against  habitual 
swearing  and  obscenity,  and  Hved  up  to  their  pro- 
tests. If  we  can  believe  his  word,  William  Penn 
was  one  of  these.  Once,  when  he  was  imprisoned 
in  the  Tower,  Sir  John  Robinson  taunted  him  with 
having  been  as  free  in  speech  and  morals  before  he 
turned  Quaker  as  any  other  cavalier. 

"  When  and  where  ?"  said  Penn.  **  I  charge  thee  to  tell  the  com- 
pany to  my  face." 

"  Abroad  and  at  home,  too,"  said  Sir  John. 

**  No,  no,  Sir  John,"  broke  in  some  one  who  was  present,  "that 
is  too  much." 

"  I  make  this  bold  challenge,"  said  Penn,  "  to  all  men,  women, 
and  children  upon  earth,  justly  to  accuse  me  of  ever  having  seen  me 
drunk,  heard  me  swear,  utter  a  curse,  or  speak  one  obscene  word 
(much  less  that  I  ever  made  it  my  practice).  I  speak  this  to  God's 
glory,  that  has  ever  preserved  me  from  the  power  of  those  pollutions, 
and  that  from  a  child  begat  an  hatred  in  me  towards  them.  But 
there  is  nothing  more  common  than  when  men  are  of  a  more  severe 
life  than  ordinary,  for  loose  persons  to  comfort  themselves  with  the 
conceit  that  •  they  were  once  as  they  are.'  " 

The  theatre  of  those  days,  of  course,  reflected  in 
public  the  license  that  was  so  freely  allowed  in  pri- 
vate life.  The  play-writers  could  produce  nothing 
much  but  obscenity  ;  and  no  plays  of  any  literary 
merit  were  written.  It  was  a  sad  change  since 
Shakespeare's  days,  when  English  minds,  youthful 
and  ardent  and  full  t)f  beautiful  fancies,  enjoyed 
"The  Tempest"  and  **  Midsummer  Night's  Dream," 
the  noble  melancholy  of  Hamlet,  the  jolly  "  Taming 
of  the  Shrew,"  or  the  grand  tragedies  of  Macbeth 
and  Caesar.  They  were  chivalrous,  generous,  like 
Raleigh,  dreaming  of  tender  love  or  brilliant  enter- 

"5 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

prise ;  they  sailed  the  seas  for  the  glory  of  adven- 
ture and  to  see  undiscovered  lands.  But  now  every- 
thing was  turned  to  dirt,  sordidness,  and  corrup- 
tion. 

Charles  II.  admitted  to  his  presence  as  an  amusing 
character  Blood,  the  assassin,  who  had  attempted  the 
lives  of  the  Duke  of  Ormond  and  the  keeper  of  the 
Tower.  Most  of  us  are  familiar  with  the  old  story, 
*'  how  at  a  ball  at  court,  a  child  was  dropped  by  one 
of  the  ladies  in  dancing."  They  carried  it  off  in  a 
handkerchief,  "and  the  king  had  it  in  his  closet  a 
week  after,  and  did  dissect  it,  making  great  sport  of 
it."  His  lords  and  ladies  danced  together  naked,  or 
smeared  one  another's  faces  with  candle-grease  and 
soot  till  they  looked  like  devils.  The  Duke  of  York 
gets  Lord  Clarendon's  daughter  with  child,  and  Clar- 
endon willingly  declares  his  daughter  a  strumpet,  so 
that  the  duke  need  not  think  of  marrying  her,  and 
Sir  Charles  Berkeley,  to  help  the  matter  out,  swore  he 
had  been  with  her,  and  for  this  he  was  given  a  pension 
and  made  Earl  of  Falmouth.  And  Pepys  bluntly 
tells  us  how  the  duke  "  hath  come  out  of  his  wife's 
bed  and  gone  to  others  laid  in  bed  for  him."  These, 
we  must  remember,  were  Penn's  friends  at  court,  the 
men  on  whom  he  relied  to  help  him  protect  the 
Quakers  and  retain  his  vast  province  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. 

It  would  be  easy  to  fill  many  pages  with  instances 
of  the  rough  manners  of  all  classes.  A  man  was 
thought  none  the  less  of  if  in  a  public  place  he  seized 
some  buxom  woman  and  kissed  her.  Pepys  relates 
several  instances  of  kissing  ladies  in  sport  when 

ii6 


FIRST  IMPRISONMENT 

dining  at  a  tavern  ;  and  people  of  quality  of  that 
time  were  constantly  going  out  to  dine  together  at 
the  taverns.  The  cavaliers  were  outrageous  in  these 
matters.  The  king,  Pepys  says,  would  get  Mrs. 
Stewart  in  a  corner  and  hug  and  kiss  her  for  half  an 
hour  "  to  the  observation  of  all  the  world." 

But  the  most  shocking  ruggedness  was  the  way  in 
which  everybody  went  to  see  executions  ;  a  custom 
which  is  apparently  beginning  to  be  restored  with  us 
at  our  negro  burnings.  And  such  executions ! 
Hanging  and  beheading  were  not  enough,  and  failed 
to  satisfy  the  crowd.  When  Strafford  was  executed, 
the  people  complained  that  he  had  not  been  cut 
open  and  compelled  to  see  his  entrails  burning  be- 
fore his  eyes.  In  the  descriptions  of  these  scenes, 
written  by  men  of  the  time,  it  is  difficult  to  find 
a  single  word  revealing  the  slightest  abhorrence  or 
pity. 

"  I  went  out  to  Charing  Cross,  to  see  Major  General  Harrison 
hanged  drawn  and  quartered ;  whicli  was  done  there,  he  looking  as 
cheerful  as  any  man  could  do  in  that  condition.  He  was  presently 
cut  down,  and  his  head  and  heart  shown  to  the  people,  at  which  there 
were  great  shouts  of  joy."    (Pepys's  Diary,  ed.  of  1893,  vol.  i.  p.  260.) 

But  we  must  not  suppose  that  because  these 
people  were  rough  and  cruel,  that  some  of  them  had 
not  elevated  sentiments  and  amusements,  and  many 
of  the  best  amenities  of  life,  like  the  men  of  the 
previous  century,  when  Elizabeth  was  queen.  In 
spite  of  the  devilish  doings  of  the  cavaliers,  there 
were  many  who  enjoyed  art,  literature,  and  music. 
Men  like  Evelyn  and  Locke  were  striving  to  im- 
prove  every  means   of  life   and   thought.     Others 

117 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

were  struggling  with  the  beginnings  of  modern 
science.  They  had  for  their  contemporary  the  noble 
author  of  **  Paradise  Lost ;"  and  Dryden,  Waller, 
Cowley,  and  Butler  were  writing  the  verse  which 
after  the  lapse  of  over  two  hundred  years  has  still 
the  power  to  charA  us.  It  would  be  as  great  a 
mistake  to  suppose  them  completely  lacking  in  no- 
bility of  life  as  to  suppose  that  we  ourselves  are 
altogether  lacking  because  we  burn  negroes  to  death 
at  the  stake  and  have  more  unpunished  murders  and 
assassinations  than  have  ever  before  been  known  in 
history. 

The  people  of  Penn's  time  seem  to  have  had  a 
strong  taste  for  music,  and  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
playing  on  flutes,  viols,  and  harps,  and  singing  of 
songs.  Pepys  often  speaks  of  his  song-book  as  one 
of  his  most  treasured  volumes.  He  solaced  himself 
with  music  almost  every  evening.  He  sometimes 
carried  his  flute  in  his  pocket,  and  when  travelling  in 
Holland  played  in  the  stage-coach ;  and  we  find 
him  one  day  stopping  business  at  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment to  play  on  the  organ  with  some  friends  before 
dinner.  In  the  commonwealth  times  music  had 
been  suppressed  by  the  Puritans.  Parliament  passed 
an  ordinance  for  systematically  destroying  all  the 
church  organs  throughout  the  country.  But  when 
the  king  came  to  his  own  again  the  cavaliers  became 
more  musical  than  ever  for  the  sake  of  annoying  the 
Puritans. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  ease  and  amusement, 
and  much  luxury.  Some  of  the  courtiers,  it  is  said, 
lived  in  rooms  in  which  the  furniture  was  of  solid 

ii8 


FIRST  IMPRISONMENT 

silver,  and  there  were  decorated  ceilings  which  cost 
half  as  much  as  the  house.  All  kinds  of  games  were 
popular,  tennis,  billiards,  bowls,  all  the  games  we 
have  now  and  many  long  since  gone  out  of  use.  At 
Whitehall  the  officials  and  ministers  debated  their 
state  affairs  walking  up  and  down  the  corridors.  In- 
tercourse with  the  licentious  king  was  easy  and  not 
ver}'  formal.  Pepys,  when  he  saw  the  king  or  the 
Duke  of  York  out  walking,  seems  to  have  gone  up 
and  spoken  to  them  as  though  they  had  been  boon 
companions. 

If  we  examine  the  portraits  of  those  times,  such, 
for  example,  as  those  which  have  been  engraved  in 
Lodge's  famous  volumes,  we  get  from  the  costumes 
and  faces  a  strong  impression  of  a  people  who  were 
far  from  destitute  of  culture.  In  fact,  the  age  was 
full  of  the  most  extraordinary  contradictions  existing 
side  by  side.  Such  men  as  Milton  or  Dryden, 
Locke  or  Penn,  daily  heard  language  and  saw  sights 
in  the  streets  that  would  amaze  and  horrify  the 
modern  world.  The  standing  source  of  caricature 
and  wit  for  a  long  time  was  the  Rump  Parliament,  a 
name  which  originated  in  an  indecent  jest,  and  it 
was  harped  on  for  years  by  butcher  boys  exhibiting 
parts  of  dead  animals  in  the  streets  or  throwing  them 
into  windows,  or  by  pictures  of  a  vileness  that  cannot 
now  even  be  described. 

There  was  one  constant  sight  from  which  no 
traveller  could  keep  his  eyes.  The  heads  of  the 
many  notorious  political  malefactors  were  stuck 
about  as  barbaric  ornaments  in  various  parts  of 
London,  on  Temple  Bar  or  on  the  bridge,  and  in 

119 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

the  smaller  towns  where  insurrections  had  been 
suppressed.  After  the  Restoration,  when  the  regi- 
cides were  drawn  and  quartered,  their  quarters  were 
hung  up  in  the  streets  like  butchers'  meat  The 
bodies  of  Cromwell,  Ireton,  and  Bradshaw  were 
taken  from  their  graves,  their  heads  cut  off  and 
mounted  in  the  city.  There,  along  with  the  other 
grim  trophies  of  popular  vengeance,  they  rotted  in 
the  wind  and  rain,  the  dishevelled  hair  slowly  falling 
out,  and  the  grinning  skull  becoming  more  and  more 
ghastly  as  the  flesh  dried  up  and  fell  away,  while 
beneath  them  in  the  foggy,  muddy  streets,  surged 
that  strange  life  of  brilliant,  gay  cavaliers,  sombre, 
stern  Puritans,  wild-eyed  Fifth  Monarchy  men, 
Familists,  Antinomians,  Seekers,  and  other  strange 
sects,  all  warring,  jarring,  persecuting,  and  tearing 
one  another  over  those  wonderful  principles  of  free 
government  and  free  religion  which  in  a  hundred 
years  created  the  great  American  republic,  and,  may 
we  hope,  spread  to  the  utmost  ends  of  the  earth. 


I20 


VIII 

CONTROVERSY,    FIRST    PRINCIPLES,  AND    IMPRISONMENT 

A  FEW  months  after  he  was  turned  out  of  his 
father's  house,  Penn  became  a  recognized  preacher 
among  the  Quakers.  Events  had  moved  rapidly 
with  him.  In  September,  1667,  he  had  been  finally 
converted  at  Cork,  by  listening  to  Thomas  Loe. 
That  same  autumn  he  returned  to  his  father  in  Eng- 
land, and  in  1668,  we  are  informed,  he  was  accepted 
as  a  preacher. 

He  was  twenty- four  years  old  ;  and  he  had  prob- 
ably quickly  shown  a  facility  for  public  speaking  in 
the  meetings  he  had  attended.  His  mind  had  been 
long  absorbed  in  religious  subjects,  and  his  education 
was  an  advantage.  The  Quakers  were  no  doubt 
glad  to  have  secured  a  convert  from  the  cavalier 
class,  and  he  was  almost  the  first  of  this  class  that 
had  come  to  them.  Robert  Barclay  joined  them 
about  the  same  time  ;  and,  indeed,  this  seems  to 
have  been  the  period  when  educated  men  were  com- 
ing forward  to  rationalize  and  soften  the  fanaticism 
of  Fox  and  the  crudities  of  the  old  Familists  and 
Seekers.  Besides  Penn  and  Barclay,  there  were 
Whitehead,  Ellwood,  and  Pennington,  who  were  soon 
engaged  in  this  work. 

Twenty-five  or  thirty  years  afterwards  Leslie,  a 
121 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

very  sharp  critic  of  the  Quakers,  described  the  effect 
upon  them  of  Penn's  writings. 

"Especially  of  late  some  of  them  have  made  nearer  advances 
towards  Christianity  than  ever  before  ;  and  among  them  the  ingenious 
Mr.  Penn  has  of  late  refined  some  of  their  gross  notions,  and  brought 
them  into  some  form,  and  has  made  them  speak  sense  and  English, 
of  both  which  George  Fox,  their  first  and  great  apostle,  was  totally 
ignorant.  .  .  .  They  endeavor  all  they  can  to  make  it  appear  that 
their  doctrine  was  uniform  from  the  beginning,  and  that  there  has 
been  no  alteration ;  and  therefor  they  take  upon  them  to  defend  all 
the  writings  of  George  Fox,  and  others  of  the  first  Quakers,  and  turn 
and  wind  them  to  make  them  (but  it  is  impossible)  agree  with  what 
they  teach  now  at  this  day."  ("  The  Snake  in  the  Grass,"  introduc- 
tion to  3d  ed.  of  1698.) 

The  exact  nature  of  this  work  done  by  Penn, 
Barclay,  and  others  seems  to  have  been  to  ignore 
the  visions  and  half  inclination  to  miracles  of  Fox, 
and  in  place  of  them  argue  in  an  orderly  and  learned 
manner  for  the  simple  faith  they  found  among  the 
Quakers,  show  that  it  was  in  close  conformity  to  the 
primitive  Christianity  of  the  first  three  centuries,  and 
disclose  the  political  importance  of  its  unusually  ad- 
vanced ideas  of  religious  liberty.  To  the  part  re- 
lating to  religious  liberty  Penn  especially  devoted 
himself. 

Fox  was  incapable  of  work  of  this  sort,  but  he 
could  lay  the  foundation  for  it.  His  famous  letter 
to  the  Governor  of  Barbadoes  is  regarded  by  many 
Quakers  as  their  creed,  as  the  original  and  simple 
statement  of  their  faith,  from  which  there  is  to  be  no 
deviation.  In  spite  of  bad  grammar  and  the  obscure, 
even  unintelligible  phrases  of  which  Fox  was  guilty, 
there  was  a  germinal  power  in  his  thought  which 

122 


FIRST   PRINCIPLES  AND  IMPRISONMENT 

cannot  be  ignored.  Penn  late  in  life  said  of  him, 
**As  abruptly  and  brokenly  as  sometimes  his  sen- 
tences would  fall  from  him  about  divine  things,  it 
is  well  known  they  were  often  as  texts  to  many 
fairer  declarations."  Macaulay,  who  never  spares 
either  Fox  or  Penn,  sharply  adds,  "  that  is  to  say, 
George  Fox  talked  nonsense,  and  some  of  his  friends 
paraphrased  it  into  sense." 

But  to  return  to  Penn,  who  has  just  become  a 
Quaker  preacher.  He  retained,  as  we  have  already 
said  in  the  first  chapter,  most  of  his  cavalier  dress. 
There  is  a  tradition  that  he  even  continued  to  wear 
his  sword,  which  was  then  a  customary  part  of  the 
costume  of  a  man  of  rank  or  fashion.  He  consulted 
George  Fox  about  it,  saying  that  the  weapon  was 
hardly  consistent  with  their  principles,  but  it  had 
saved  his  life  in  Paris  without  injuring  his  antagonist 
Fox  answered,  "  I  advise  thee  to  wear  it  as  long  as 
thou  canst." 

Afterwards,  meeting  Penn  without  the  sword,  he 
said, — 

"William,  where  is  thy  sword?" 

"Oh,"  said  Penn,  "I  have  taken  thy  advice.  I 
wore  it  as  long  as  I  could." 

It  is  probable  that  he  wore  the  cavalier  hat,  or  the 
fashionable  hat  of  the  time,  stripped  of  its  excessive 
ornamentation,  nearly  all  his  life.  When  James  II. 
was  king,  which  was  when  Penn  was  past  forty,  he 
and  Penn  were  talking  one  day,  and  the  king,  who 
was  a  Roman  Catholic,  asked  him  to  explain  the 
difference  between  that  religion  and  the  Quaker 
faith.     Penn  pointed  to  their  hats,  which  were  ex- 

»23 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

actly  alike  except  that  the  king's  was  covered  with 
feathers  and  ribbons,  "  The  only  difference,"  said 
Penn,  "lies  in  the  ornaments  that  have  been  added 
to  thine." 

This  very  clever  and  politic  answer  disposed  of  a 
dangerous  question.  George  Fox  would  have  an- 
swered differently,  and  there  would  have  been  trou- 
ble. But  Penn  was  always  careful  not  to  give  per- 
sonal offence  by  his  religion.  "  I  know  no  religion," 
he  once  said,  "  which  destroys  courtesy,  civility,  and 
kindness,"  and  we  have  already  noted  that  he  some- 
times avoided  using  the  offensive  thee  and  thou  lan- 
guage in  his  letters. 

But  at  the  time  of  which  we  are  now  writing,  the 
year  1668,  the  first  of  his  preaching  life,  this  cavalier 
Quaker,  whether  with  or  without  a  sword,  cut  and 
slashed  about  him  with  considerable  vigor.  He 
began  immediately  to  write  controversial  pamphlets. 
The  moderation  of  our  time  in  these  matters  was 
then  unknown,  and  the  advocate  of  a  sect  would  not 
have  been  respected  or  even  understood  unless  he 
hit  hard. 

His  first  tract  was  called  "Truth  Exalted,"  and 
consisted  of  sweeping  abuse,  in  the  rough  language 
of  the  times,  of  ^11  religions  except  his  own.  Pepys 
described  it  as  "a  ridiculous,  nonsensical  book."  The 
papists  were  told  that  their  church  was  the  whore  of 
Babylon,  the  corrupter  of  the  nations,  drunk  with 
the  blood  of  saints  and  martyrs,  their  whole  religion 
founded  and  maintained  by  inhuman  bloodshed  and 
cruelty,  and  he  goes  on  to  rail  at  their  holy  water, 
"baby  ,  baptism,"     bowings,    crosses,    images,    and 

124 


FIRST  PRINCIPLES  AND  IMPRISONMENT 

Peter's  chair.  The  Church  of  England  was  another 
persecutor,  lustful,  proud,  and  wicked,  that  had 
made  no  progress  in  the  Reformation,  but  clung  to, 
organs,  fonts,  "baby  baptism,"  holy  days,  '*  with 
much  more  such  like  dirty  trash  and  foul  supersti- 
tion." As  for  the  Puritans  and  other  dissenters, 
they  were  hypocrites,  revilers  of  God,  whom  they 
represented  as  worse  than  the  worst  man,  and  their 
doctrine  of  mere  human  origin. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  in  this  tract  that  Penn,  though  a 
college-bred  youth,  protests  against  learning  and 
higher  education  as  an  injury  to  religion.  He  also 
declares  his  belief  in  the  possibility  of  human  perfec- 
tion on  earth  as  against  original  sin  and  total  de- 
pravity. 

During  the  spring  and  summer  of  this  year,  1668, 
he  went  twice  to  court  in  company  with  other 
Quakers  to  urge  the  release  of  those  members  of 
their  faith  who  were  in  prison.  The  first  time  their 
application  was  made  to  the  Duke  of  Buckingham, 
who  favored  liberty,  but  could  do  nothing  for  them. 
Their  second  application  was  to  the  secretary  of 
state.  Sir  Henry  Berwick  ;  and  again  they  failed. 
Penn's  companions  on  these  occasions  were  George 
Whitehead,  Josiah  Coale,  and  Thomas  Loe.  They 
doubtless  took  Penn  with  them,  because,  as  a  cavalier 
and  a  son  of  the  admiral,  he  might  arouse  some 
interest  in  their  favor.  This  was  his  first  attempt  to 
use  his  cavalier  character  in  this  way,  and,  though 
unsuccessful  in  this  instance,  he  followed  it  up  more 
effectually  in  later  years,  and,  as  a  Quaker  courtier, 
accomplished  some  very  substantial  results. 

125 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

He  soon  wrote  another  hard-hitting  controversial 
pamphlet  called  "The  Guide  Mistaken  ;"  and  about 
»^the  same  time,  or  soon  after,  two  Presbyterians  of 
'  the  congregation  of  Thomas  Vincent,  at  Spittlefields, 
London,  became  Quakers.  The  enraged  Vincent 
stormed  against  tlie  "  damnable  doctrines"  that  had 
seduced  them,  and  called  Penn  a  Jesuit  Penn  and 
George  Whitehead  immediately  challenged  him  to 
an  open  debate  before  his  own  congregation.  These 
debates  were  common  at  that  time,  and  usually  veiy 
uproarious  affairs. 

When  Penn  and  Whitehead  arrived,  they  had  to 
push  their  way  through  the  crowded  congregation, 
while  Vincent,  who  was  waiting  for  them  all  prepared, 
kept  up  a  running  fire  of  denunciation.  Penn  and 
Whitehead,  however,  plunged  into  the  wordy  war, 
and  amid  hisses  and  calls  of  Jesuit,  blasphemer, 
damnable  villain,  maintained  for  a  long  time  an 
argument  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  while  Vin- 
cent kept  interrupting  them  with  savage  questions. 
He  affected  to  be  shocked  at  their  arguments,  and 
fell  suddenly  to  prayer,  charging  them  with  blas- 
phemy. The  congregation  blew  out  the  candles 
and  tried  to  pull  down  the  Quakers.  Nobody  was 
satisfied  with  the  result,  and  they  tried  to  no  purpose 
to  arrange  for  another  debate. 

This  induced  Penn  to  write  a  pamphlet,  and  a 
very  famous  one,  called  "The  Sandy  Foundation 
Shaken,"  which  set  forth  his  rejection  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  as  commonly  stated.  At  the 
same  time  it  attacked  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement 
for  the  sins  of  the  world  by  the  death  of  Christ,  and 

126 


FIRST  PRINCIPLES  AND  IMPRISONMENT 

the  doctrine  of  imputative  righteousness.  That  was 
certainly  enough  to  get  a  young  man,  or  any  one, 
into  trouble  in  that  age. 

He  assailed  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  a 
scholastic  invention  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and,  after 
dealing  with  the  old-fashioned  metaphysical  subtle- 
ties, described  it  as  *  *  conceived  in  ignorance,  brought 
forth  and  maintained  by  cruelty."  It  was  a  mere 
human  invention,  unknown  to  the  primitive  church, 
"neither  was  it  believed  by  the  primitive  saints  or 
thus  stated  by  any  I  have  read  of  in  the  first,  second, 
or  third  centuries. "  God,  he  said,  was  "  not  to  be 
divided,  but  [was]  one  pure,  entire,  and  eternal 
being,  who  in  the  fulness  of  time  sent  forth  his  Son 
as  the  true  light."  Afterwards,  at  the  close  of  the 
pamphlet,  he  added,  "  Mistake  me  not ;  we  never 
have  disowned  a  Father,  Word,  and  Spirit,  which 
are  one,  but  [we  disown]  men's  inventions." 

This  was  in  a  general  way  what  the  Quakers  be- 
lieved on  this  subject.  They  held  that  although 
the  three  persons  were  mentioned  in  the  Scriptures 
and  declared  to  be  one,  yet  the  complicated  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  as  stated  in  the  Athanasian 
creed,  was  never  heard  of  until  three  hundred  years 
after  Christ  They  preferred,  they  said,  the  state- 
ment of  the  Scriptures  to  the  statement  of  the 
school-men.  They  accepted  the  simple  account  in 
the  New  Testament  that  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost  were  one  ;  but  they  rejected  the  scholastic 
doctrine  that  the  three  were  each  separate  and 
distinct  persons  and  substances,  and  yet  also  one. 
Such  idle   metaphysics,  they   said,   tended    not   to 

127 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

righteousness,  and  were  unknown  to  the  primitive 
Christians. 

In  the  second  part  of  the  *'  Sandy  Foundation" 
Penn  attacked  the  commonly  received  doctrine  of 
the  atonement,  which  held  that  mankind  had  been 
saved  from  the  infinite  and  unforgiving  wrath  of 
God  only  by  the  infliction  of  all  that  wrath  and  ven- 
geance on  Christ,  who  in  his  death  wholly  paid  for 
the  unforgivable  sins  of  man,  past,  present,  and  to 
come.  Penn  ridiculed  this  doctrine  as  inconsistent 
with  numerous  passages  of  Scripture  which  describe 
God  as  merciful,  loving,  and  righteous,  and  as  in 
itself  absurd  and  contrary  to  reason  ;  for  remission 
of  sins  and  salvation  came  by  faith,  obedience,  and 
good  works. 

This  was  another  fundamental  doctrine  of  the 
early  Quakers.  They  carried  their  belief  in  the 
inner  light  so  far  as  to  hold  that  the  appearance  of 
Christ  on  the  earth  was  solely  to  confer  his  spirit — 
that  is,  the  inner  light — on  all  men.  The  only  Christ 
they  worshipped  was  the  spiritual  Christ  in  each 
heart.  His  sufferings  and  death  as  man  were  simply 
incidents  of  his  earthly  life,  and  not  fit  subjects  for 
worship.  They  held  that  it  was  his  spirit  that  would 
save  mankind,  and  not  the  shedding  of  his  blood  or 
any  mere  act  or  event  of  his  life  ;  that  he  came  to 
save  men  by  giving  them  a  spiritual  principle  that 
would  change  their  hearts  ;  that  the  idea  of  it  being 
necessary,  in  order  to  save  mankind,  that  Christ 
should  be  sacrificed  and  tortured  was  a  mere  mate- 
rial and  vulgar  notion,  unworthy  of  belief  and  incon- 
sistent with  any  sense  of  justice  on  the  part  of  God. 

128 


FIRST   PRINCIPLES  AND  IMPRISONMENT 

This  opinion  seems  to  have  been  held  by  the 
majority  of  Quakers  for  over  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  without  any  serious  dissent  from  it.  But  a 
party  was  slowly  growing  up  among  them  which  in- 
clined to  return  to  the  old  form  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  atonement,  and  by  the  year  1827,  this  party  had 
become  a  majority  of  all  the  Quakers  in  England 
and  America.  There  was  a  great  controversy  over 
the  question,  and  a  separation  followed.  The 
majority  became  known  as  the  Orthodox  Quakers, 
while  those  who  held  to  the  doctrine  of  Penn  and 
the  early  leaders  of  the  sect  were  called  Hicksites.* 

The  last  part  of  Penn's  **  Sandy  Foundation" 
assailed  that  familiar  doctrine  of*  the  time  that  men 
could  be  justified  in  the  sight  of  God,  not  by  their 
good  works,  but  only  by  the  righteousness  of  Christ 
being  imputed  to  them.  This  was  a  much  worn 
subject  of  controversy,  and  the  numerous  small  and 
radical  sects  which  were  being  absorbed  by  the 
Quakers  were  very  strenuous  in  maintaining  that 
imputed  righteousness  was  an  absurdity,  and  that  a 
man  could  be  justified  or  sanctified  only  by  his  own 
acts  of  righteousness  or  innocency. 

Penn  had  now  attained  what  must  have  been  a 
considerable  part  of  his  youthful  ambition.  He  had 
succeeded  in  stating,  with  fully  detailed  arguments, 
some  of  the  most  fundamental  principles  of  the  new 
faith  which  had  aroused  his  enthusiasm.  As  an 
educated  man  he  must  have  felt  the  need  of  such  a 


*  Janney's  History  of  the  Friends,  vol.  iv.  chaps,  vi.,  viii.,  xiv.  ; 
The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,  p.  50. 
9  "9 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

printed  statement, — ^something  tliat  would  be  more 
durable  and  more  of  a  record  than  street-  or  field- 
preaching,  or  a  furious  verbal  controversy  with 
Presbyterians  amid  hisses,  mockery,  and  violence. 
He  had  become,  in  fact,  the  first  Quaker  theologian. 

As  we  read  the  **  Sandy  Foundation,"  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  it  was  written  with  thoroughness  and  care. 
Pepys  says,  *  *  I  find  it  so  well  writ  as  I  think  it  is  too 
good  for  him  ever  to  have  writ  it ;  and  it  is  a  serious 
sort  of  book  and  not  fit  for  everybody  to  read."  t  Its 
youthful  author  must  have  been  a  diligent  student 
of  theology,  and  familiar  with  all  the  abstruseness 
of  the  religious  controversies  of  the  time.  But  he 
was  very  young  to  be  doing  such  a  thing,  for  he  was 
only  twenty-four  years  old. 

We  must  remember,  however,  that  in  the  fluid 
state  of  religious  opinion,  and  in  the  strange  religious 
excitement  which  had  set  everybody  rushing  to  and 
fro,  it  was  easy  for  youthful  ardor,  if  backed  by  any 
ability  at  all,  to  produce  an  impression. 

The  arguments  of  his  pamphlet  are  now  the  ac- 
cepted belief  of  millions.  The  substance  of  the 
faith  of  the  early  Quakers  was  that  they  liked  to  be- 
Heve  that  Christ  was  divine  without  being  obliged  to 
state  his  divinity  in  the  form  of  a  metaphysical 
subtlety.  They  liked  to  believe  that  he  came  to 
save  the  world,  but  in  a  spiritual  sense,  and  not 
merely  by  means  of  death  and  suffering.  This  gen- 
eral spiritual  idea  of  his  divinity  has  now  spread  to 
every  division  of  Christendom,  and  is  the  most  sin- 

f  Vol.  viii.  p.  227. 
130 


FIRST  PRINCIPLES  AND  IMPRISONMENT 

cere  form  of  belief  on  the  subject  held  in  modern 
times.  Millions  of  men  and  women  who  announce 
themselves  as  Trinitarians  mean  only  that  they  be- 
lieve in  a  general  way  in  the  divinity  of  Christ 
Few  of  them  care  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as 
taught  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  few  of  them  could 
even  state  it. 

But  it  was  a  daring  thing  to  announce  such  beHef 
in  the  year  1668.  Such  doctrine  might  possibly 
pass  unnoticed  in  a  field-preacher,  but  printed  and 
circulated  with  an  educated  man's  name  attached  it 
was  an  atrocious  crime.  The  Bishop  of  London 
saw  in  Penn's  pamphlet  what  to  him  was  a  flat  de- 
nial of  the  divinity  of  Christ,  and  that  was  a  crime 
by  act  of  Parliament  Penn  was  forthwith  arrested 
and  sent  to  the  Tower,  where  for  nine  months  the 
powerful  influence  that  could  be  exerted  in  favor  of 
a  cavalier  was  unable  to  release  him. 

He  had  in  truth  committed  a  very  serious  offence, 
and  for  some  time  he  was  imprisoned  with  such 
rigor  that  his  friends  could  not  see  him.  He  was 
informed  that  "the  bishop  was  resolved  that  he 
should  publicly  recant  or  die  a  prisoner."  To  this 
he  replied, — 

"  All  is  well :  I  wish  ihey  had  told  me  so  before,  since  the  ex- 
pecting of  a  release  put  a  stop  to  some  business  ;  thou  mayst  tell 
my  father,  who  I  know  will  ask  thee,  these  words :  that  my  prison 
shall  be  my  grave,  before  I  will  budge  a  jot ;  for  I  owe  my  con- 
science to  no  mortal  man  ;  I  have  no  need  to  fear;  God  will  make 
amends  for  all ;  they  are  mistaken  in  me ;  I  value  not  their  threats 
and  resolutions,  for  they  shall  know  I  can  weary  out  their  malice 
and  peevishness,  and  in  me  shall  they  all  behold  a  resolution  above 
fear ;  conscience  above  cruelty,  and  a  baffle  put  to  all  their  designs 

131 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

bjr  the  spirit  of  patience,  the  companion  of  all  the  tabulated  flock 
of  the  blessed  Jesus,  who  is  the  author  and  finisher  of  the  faith  that 
overcomes  the  world,  yea,  death  and  hell  too.  Neither  great  nor 
good  things  are  ever  attained  without  loss  and  hardships.  He  that 
would  reap  and  not  labor,  must  faint  wiih  the  wind  and  perish  in 
disappointments  ;  but  an  hair  of  my  head  shall  not  fall  without  the 
Providence  of  my  Father  that  is  over  all." 

So,  like  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and  John  Bunyan,  he 
settled  down  to  writing  a  book  while  in  prison,  and 
prepared  his  most  famous  work,  "  No  Cross,  No 
Crown."  The  title  was  an  excellent  one  and  has 
prolonged  the  life  of  the  book,  which  is  the  only  one 
of  Penn's  writings  that  is  still  sometimes  republished. 
It  shows  the  strange  religiousness  of  that  age  when 
liberty  was  new.  Its  thoughts  have  been  thrashed 
over  by  millions  of  Christian  preachers  again  and 
again  in  our  time,  and  seem  commonplace  enough, 
for  Christianity  has  accepted  the  spiritual  movement 
which  Penn  and  the  Quakers  were  starting  and 
carried  it  far  beyond  anything  they  dreamed  of  But 
it  was  a  new  thing  then  to  insist  so  absolutely  on 
good  works  as  against  blind  faith,  and  on  spirituality 
as  against  dogmas  and  ceremonies.  It  was  a  new 
thing  to  speak  of  the  cross,  not  as  an  outward 
symbol,  but  as  an  inward  light  It  was  startling  to 
be  told  that  all  religion  could  take  place  within  the 
soul,  and  not  in  a  church  or  confessional  box. 

George  Fox  relates  that  when  he  first  declared 
that  a  church  was  not  a  building,  not  lime  and 
stone,  but  a  spiritual  body,  his  hearers  were  so 
amazed  that  they  broke  up  the  meeting.  They 
were  beside  themselves  with  the  astonishment  of 
men  who  have  heard  something  which  secretly  com- 

132 


FIRST  PRINCIPLES  AND  IMPRISONMENT 

forts  and  delights  them,  but  which  they  dare  not  ac- 
cept 

In  "  No  Cross,  No  Crown"  Penn,  of  course,  argued 
strongly  for  primitive  Christianity,  and  protested  in 
Puritan  fashion  against  the  corruptions  of  the  times, 
the  balls,  masks,  and  feasting,  pride,  avarice,  and 
luxtiry.  All  these  things  could  be  mitigated  only 
by  Quaker  spirituality,  the  cultivation  of  the  inward 
light  and  the  refusal  to  encourage  human  pride  by 
pulling  off  the  hat,  bowing,  and  giving  fulsome  titles. 

But  the  advocacy  of  the  special  principles  of  the 
Quakers  forms  a  very  small  portion  of  the  book.  It 
was  in  reality  a  strong  appeal  to  the  general  religious 
sentiment  of  mankind  without  regard  to  creed,  an 
appeal  to  the  growing  spirituality  which  has  become 
the  modem  religion  in  place  of  dogma ;  and  it  is 
this  quality  which  causes  it  still  to  be  occasionally 
republished. 

If  it  had  been  well  written  it  would  have  been  a 
wonderful  book.  But,  unfortunately,  Penn  wrote  in 
a  diffuse,  wordy,  dull  way,  which  obscured  and  crip- 
pled the  really  great  ideas  he  had  in  his  soul. 

In  the  second  part  of  **No  Cross,  No  Crown," 
which  seems  to  have  been  written  some  years  after- 
wards, Penn  cites  the  sayings  of  about  eighty  famous 
men  of  the  ancient  and  classical  world,  and  of  about 
sixty  of  later  times,  to  show  how  all  the  great  and 
wise,  heathen  and  Christians,  without  regard  to  sect, 
testified  in  favor  of  pure  spiritual  righteousness  and 
good  works  as  the  only  true  religion. 

These  citations  show  that  in  his  youth  Penn  must 
have  been  an  omniverous  reader  and  spent  much 

133 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

time  in  libraries.  His  handling  of  the  innumerable 
texts  he  cites  shows  great  familiarity  with  the  Bible. 
Indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  read  his  works  without 
concluding  that  although  he  had  no  great  gift  of 
literary  expression,  yet  he  was  a  man  fully  informed 
in  the  knowledge  of  his  day  and  most  painstaking 
and  thorough  in  his  researches  and  preparation. 

Meanwhile,  however,  he  remained  in  prison  and 
was  assailed  in  pamphlets  and  from  pulpits  as  a  se- 
ducer, heretic,  and  bla.sphemer,  for  whom  the  ven- 
geance of  the  Great  Day  was  reserved.  He  wrote  a 
letter  to  the  secretary  of  state,  Lord  Arlington,  asking 
to  be  released,  because  his  imprisonment  was  illegal. 
He  had  had  no  trial  ;  he  had  not  been  heard  in  his 
own  defence ;  and  then  he  went  on  to  argue  on  the 
injustice  and  impolicy  of  punishing  people  for  their 
religious  opinions.  "  Force,"  he  says,  **  may  make 
hypocrites,  but  it  can  never  make  converts."  The 
close  of  his  letter  was  spirited  enough  for  any  cav- 
alier. 

**I  make  no  apology  for  my  letter,  as  a  trouble— the  usual  style 
of  suppliants  ;  because  I  think  the  honor  that  will  accrue  to  thee  by 
being  just  and  releasing  the  opprest,  exceeds  the  advantage  that  can 
succeed  to  me." 

This  is  one  of  the  instances  in  which  Penn  used 
the  offensive  thee  and  thou  language  in  a  public 
letter  to  an  official.  But  he  was  on  his  metal  and 
very  much  excited  at  this  time.  ^e  expected 
to  be  called  up  for  examination  on  his  heresy,  or 
given  some  sort  of  trial  in  which  he  would  have  a 
chance  to  explain  his  position  more  fully  and  at  the 
same  time  assist  the  cause  of  his  sect     But  the 

1.34 


FIRST  PRINCIPLES  AND  IMPRISONMENT 

Bishop  of  London  and  the  government,  thoroughly 
accustomed  as  they  were  to  religious  controversies, 
had  no  intention  of  giving  the  ambitious  young  man 
such  a  grand  opportunity  to  display  himself  They 
hoped  to  wean  him  from  his  delusion  by  severity 
and  personal  influence.  The  influence  was  supplied 
by  his  father  and  Bishop  Stillingfleet,  who  visited 
him,  and  Penn  afterwards  described  how  they  worked 
upon  him. 

*'  As  I  saw  very  few,  so  I  saw  them  but  seldom,  except  my  own 
father  and  Dr.  Stillingfleet,  the  present  Bishop  of  Worcester.  The 
one  came  as  my  relation,  the  other  at  the  king's  command,  to  en- 
deavor my  change  of  judgment.  But  as  I  told  him,  and  he  told  the 
king,  that  the  Tower  was  the  worst  argument  in  the  world  to  con- 
vince me,  for  whoever  was  in  the  wrong  those  who  used  force  for 
religion,  never  could  be  in  the  right — so  neither  the  Doctor's  argu- 
ments, nor  his  moving  and  interesting  motives  of  the  king's  favor 
and  preferment,  at  all  prevailed ;  and  I  am  glad  I  have  the  oppor- 
tunity to  own  so  publicly  the  great  pains  he  took,  and  humanity  he 
showed,  and  that  to  his  moderation,  learning,  and  kindness,  I  will  ever 
hold  myself  obliged."  (Memoirs,  Penna.  Hist.  Soc,  vol.  iii.  part 
ii.  p.  239.) 

Finding  that  he  was  not  to  be  publicly  examined 
or  allowed  to  defend  himself,  Penn  finally  decided  to 
write  a  pamphlet  showing  that  he  had  not  denied 
the  divinity  of  Christ.  He  called  this  new  produc- 
tion "  Innocency  with  her  Open  Face,"  and  in  it  he 
announced  most  unequivocally  his  belief  in  the  di- 
vinity, and  maintained  by  citations  of  Scripture  and 
argument  the  Quaker  position,  which,  while  ex- 
pressly admitting  the  divinity,  rejected  the  compli- 
cated scholastic  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  imputed 
righteousness. 

This  pamphlet  secured  his  release,  or  rather  gave 
135 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

a  ground-work  on  which  his  friends  could  help  him. 
His  father,  as  we  have  shown,  had  strong  claims  on 
the  gratitude  of  the  Duke  of  York,  and  the  duke  in- 
terceded with  the  king. 

Penn,  who  never  forgot  a  favor  or  a  kindness,  and 
with  whom  gratitude  was  a  lifelong  sentiment,  ever 
afterwards  considered  himself  bound  to  the  duke  by 
the  strongest  feeling  of  friendliness.  It  was  by  no 
means  the  last  of  the  duke's  favors,  and  Penn's  in- 
creasing attachment  to  him  was  not  altogether  for- 
tunate in  later  years. 

Penn,  now  a  free  man  once  more,  could  look  back 
with  some  satisfaction  on  his  nine  months'  imprison- 
ment In  the  religious  conflicts  of  that  time  im- 
prisonment was  a  test  of  sincerity  and  fitness.  It 
had  to  be  endured  with  a  serene  and  high  spirit 
Religious  belief  had  for  many  years  been  measured 
by  its  advocates'  willingness  to  die  at  the  stake  or  on 
the  gallows  ;  and  the  people  had  nothing  but  con- 
tempt for  religion  of  any  other  kind.  A  small  sect 
that  flinched  at  the  stake  or  the  jail  became  a  laugh- 
ing stock  and  went  out  of  existence. 

Penn  had  done  what  George  Fox  could  also  so 
effectually  do.  He  had  not  merely  endured  his  im- 
prisonment with  a  spirit  that  won  the  respect  both 
of  his  followers  and  his  enemies,  but  he  had  made 
the  imprisonment  a  means  of  advancing  the  cause 
he  had  at  heart,  of  making  it  known  to  the  world  in 
a  way  that  would  arouse  enthusiasm.  He  had  stated 
more  fully  and  completely  than  had  yet  been  done 
the  fundamental  doctrines  of  his  faith  in  his  two 
pamphlets,   "The  Sandy  Foundation"  and  **Inno- 

136 


FIRST  PRINCIPLES  AND  IMPRISONMENT 

cency  with  her  Open  Face ;"  and  these  two  pam- 
phlets, the  one  that  imprisoned  him  and  the  one 
that  released  him,  are  to  this  day  the  authorities 
used  to  prove  the  original  doctrines  of  the  Quakers. 
When  we  add  to  these  two  pamphlets  his  book, 
**  No  Cross,  No  Crown,"  which  has  also  a  permanent 
value,  we  have  Penn's  three  most  important  works  ; 
and  it  was  a  good  deal  to  be  accomplished  within  a 
twelvemonth  by  a  young  man  of  only  twenty-four, 
who  had  spent  most  of  that  time  locked  up  in  the 
Tower. 


»37 


IX 

TRIAL   BY  JURY   AND   HAT   HONOR 

Among  the  persons  whose  respect  Penn  won  by 
his  imprisonment  was  his  father,  the  admiral.  But 
the  father's  relenting  was  slight  The  little  inter- 
course he  had  with  his  son  was  still  formal  and  severe. 
While  the  son  had  been  going  through  his  year  of 
controversy  and  imprisonment,  the  admiral  had  had 
troubles  of  his  own  ;  for  it  was  in  that  year  that  he 
was  impeached  as  already  described,  and  prevented 
from  going  to  sea  in  command  of  the  fleet  In 
addition  to  that  annoyance  and  disappointment,  he 
was  now  laid  up  with  a  bad  attack  of  the  gout 

But  he  relented  so  far  as  to  request  that  Penn 
should  go  back  to  Ireland  and  again  take  charge  of 
the  family  estate.  He  would  not,  however,  conde- 
scend to  make  this  request  directly ;  it  was  made  to 
the  wayward  son  through  his  mother.  "  If  you  are 
ordained  to  be  another  cross  to  me,"  said  the  ad- 
miral, when  he  at  last  consented  to  write  to  his  son, 
"God's  will  be  done,  and  I  shall  arm  myself  the  best 
I  can  against  it" 

Penn  was  in  Ireland  on  this  occasion  for  about  a 
year,  and  in  the  intervals  of  business  seems  to  have 
found  ample  time  for  very  substantial  service  to  the 
people  of  his  faith.  On  his  arrival  he  found  nearly 
all  the  Quakers  of  the  town  of  Cork  in  prison.    "  The 

i3< 


TRIAL  BY  JURY  AND   HAT  HONOR 

jail,"  he  says,  had  become  "  a  meeting-house  and  a 
workhouse,  for  they  would  not  be  idle  anywhere." 

Jealousy  in  trade,  he  found,  had  combined  with 
religious  hatred  to  accomplish  this  persecution.  He 
prepared  a  general  statement  of  their  case,  and  with 
the  assistance  of  his  friends  laid  the  matter  before 
the  lord  lieutenant  at  Dublin,  and  soon  he  had  the 
satisfaction  of  obtaining  an  order  of  council  for  the 
release  of  his  people.  This  was  the  first  time  he 
had  succeeded  in  effecting  a  release  of  this  kind, 
and  it  was  a  sort  of  business  of  which  he  did  a  good 
deal  in  after  years. 

It  is  curious  to  find  him,  in  a  public  letter  he 
prepared,  "To  the  young  convinced,"  arguing  for 
that  quietude  and  silent  contemplation  which  was 
one  of  the  foundation  principles  of  his  sect.  Let 
us  not,  he  says,  "  enter  into  many  reasonings  with 
opposers."  He  certainly  had  not  been  living  up  to 
this  standard  himself,  and  he  was  soon  to  be  thrown 
into  still  fiercer  controversy. 

The  leaders  of  the  Quakers  do  not,  as  we  read 
about  their  doings,  have  the  appearance  of  quietists. 
They  hit  as  hard  and  used  as  violent  language  as 
their  opponents ;  and  it  would  have  been  difficult 
for  them  to  have  maintained  themselves  in  any  other 
way.  Doubtless,  however,  they  enjoyed  many  in- 
tervals when  they  could  cultivate  the  inner  light  by 
serene  contemplation.  A  few  months  in  prison 
would  give  abundant  opportunities  ;  and  the  rank 
and  file  who  were  not  called  upon  to  write  or  preach 
could  live  closer  to  the  ideal  standard. 

In  1670  Penn  returned  to  London,  where,  either 
139 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

because  he  had  conducted  the  Irish  business  well 
or  because  his  father  saw  no  use  in  holding  out 
longer,  a  complete  reconciliation  took  place  between 
them. 

In  this  same  year,  because  the  infection  of  Quaker 
doctrine  seemed  to  be  growing  worse,  it  was  decided 
to  use  against  them  more  strenuously  the  famous 
Conventicle  Act  which  had  been  passed  in  1664. 
This  act  made  unlawful  any  meetings  for  worship 
other  than  those  of  the  Church  of  England  ;  the 
magistrates  were  allowed  to  fine  and  imprison  with- 
out trial  by  jury,  and  informers  were  given  one-third 
of  the  fines.  It  was  an  arbitrary,  despotic  law,  in 
clear  violation  of  the  principles  of  English  liberty. 

The  punishment  of  the  Quakers  was  always  in 
progress  at  this  period.  Every  month  proceedings 
were  begun  in  the  various  counties  as  the  magis- 
trates and  officials  obtained  evidence,  or  thought 
that  they  had  a  jury  that  would  convict,  and  fines 
and  imprisonments  were  inflicted.  But  in  this  year, 
1670,  the  work  of  suppression  was  particularly  ac- 
tive, and  it  was  inevitable  that  Penn,  in  spite  of 
the  importance  of  his  family,  must  sooner  or  later 
be  brought  within  its  sweep. 

He  had  gone,  it  seems,  one  day  in  August,  to  the 
meeting-house  in  Gracechurch  Street  or  Gracious 
Street,  as  it  was  sometimes  called,  in  London,  and, 
finding  the  doors  guarded  by  soldiers,  he  and  some 
other  Quakers  held  a  silent  meeting  standing  before 
the  door.  He  was  soon  moved  to  speak,  and  imme- 
diately the  constables  who  were  on  the  watch  seized 
him. 

140 


TRIAL  BY  JURY  AND   HAT   HONOR 

Brought  before  the  mayor,  he  was  roughly  handled 
by  that  official,  who  told  him  he  "should  have  his 
hat  pulled  off,  for  all  he  was  Admiral  Penn's  son." 
He  would  send  him  to  Bridewell,  he  said,  and  see 
him  whipped  ;  and  he  went  on  abusing  the  admiral, 
repeating  some  of  the  current  charges  of  the  day 
against  him,  and  accusing  him  of  starving  the  sailors. 
The  authorities  made  a  good  haul  that  day,  and  be- 
sides the  Quakers  they  captured  a  number  of  Inde- 
pendents and  Baptists. 

Penn  was  confined  at  the  sign  of  the  Black  Dog, 
in  Newgate  Market,  whence  he  wrote  an  affectionate 
letter  to  his  father.  "  I  am  very  well,"  he  says,  "  and 
have  no  trouble  upon  my  spirits,  besides  my  absence 
from  thee,  especially  at  this  juncture,  but  otherwise 
I  can  say,  I  was  never  better ;  and  what  they  have 
to  charge  me  with  is  harmless." 

Soon  afterwards  he  and  William  Mead,  who  was 
arrested  with  him,  were  brought  to  trial  on  an  indict- 
ment charging  them  with  preaching  to  an  unlawful 
assembly,  and  causing  a  great  concourse  and  tumult 
to  the  disturbance  of  the  king's  peace  and  the  great 
terror  of  many  of  his  liege  subjects.  A  full  account 
of  the  trial,  which  was  held  in  the  Old  Baily  during 
the  first  five  days  of  September,  1670,  may  now  be 
found  in  the  first  volume  of  Penn's  works,  and  a  few 
quotations  from  it  will  show  the  rough  method  of 
that  time  in  administering  criminal  justice.  Accused 
persons  were  not  then,  or,  indeed,  for  a  long  time 
afterwards,  allowed  counsel  to  defend  them. 

The  trial  was  conducted  principally  by  the  re- 
corder of  London,  and  there  were  on  the  bench  with 

141 


k 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

him  to  compose  the  court,  the  mayor,  five  aldermen, 
and  three  sheriffs.  When  Penn  and  Mead  entered 
the  room  wearing  their  hats,  the  officers,  it  seems, 
pulled  them  off.  But  the  court,  according  to  the 
report  of  the  trial,  did  not  choose  to  be  deprived  of 
its  sport 

** Mayor. — Sirrah,  who  bid  you  put  off  their  hats?  Put  on  their 
hats  again. 

"  Observer, — Whereupon  one  of  the  officers,  putting  the  prisoners* 
hats  upon  their  heads  (pursuant  to  the  order  of  the  Court),  brought 
them  to  the  bar. 

"  Recorder. — Do  you  know  where  you  are  ? 

"  Penn.— Yes. 

"  Recorder. — Do  you  know  it  is  the  King's  court  ? 

"  Penn. — I  know  it  to  be  a  court,  and  I  suppose  it  to  be  the  King's 
court. 

«•  Recorder. — Do  you  know  there  is  respect  due  to  the  court? 

"  Penn.— Yes. 

"  Recorder. — Why  do  you  not  pay  it,  then  ? 

"  Penn. — I  do  so. 

"  Recorder. — Why  do  you  not  put  off  your  hat,  then? 

"  Penn. — Because  I  do  not  believe  that  to  be  respect. 

*^  Recorder. — Well,  the  court  sets  forty  marks  apiece  upon  your 
heads,  as  a  fine,  for  your  contempt  of  the  court. 

"  Penn. — I  desire  it  may  be  observed,  that  we  came  into  the  court 
with  our  hats  off  (that  is,  taken  off),  and  if  they  have  been  put  on 
since,  it  was  by  order  from  the  bench ;  and  therefore,  not  we,  but  the 
bench  should  be  fined." 

Prisoners  not  being  allowed  counsel,  the  court  was 
supposed  to  be  their  counsel  and  see  that  they  were 
fairly  tried  ;  but  the  judges  handled  them  very  much 
as  French  judges  still  do.  They  questioned  and 
teased  them,  and  the  prisoners*  attempts  to  defend 
themselves  were  apt  to  become  unseemly  alterca- 
tions with  the  judges. 

Penn  declared  that  he  had  only  been  worshipping 
142 


TRIAL  BY  JURY  AND   HAT  HONOR 

God  according  to  his  conscience,  and  had  broken  no 
law,  and  asked  to  be  shown  what  law  they  thought 
he  had  broken.  The  recorder  would  give  only  a 
surly  general  answer  that  he  had  broken  the  common 
law,  and  ordered  him  to  plead  to  the  indictment 

"  Penn. — Shall  I  plead  to  an  indictment  that  hath  no  foundation 
in  law  ?  If  it  contain  that  law  you  say  I  have  broken,  why  should 
you  decline  to  produce  that  law,  since  it  will  be  impossible  for  the 
jury  to  determine  or  agree  to  bring  in  their  verdict,  who  hath  not  the 
law  produced,  by  which  they  should  measure  the  truth  of  this  indict- 
ment, and  the  guilt  or  contrary,  of  my  act. 

"  Recorder. — You  are  a  saucy  fellow ;  speak  to  the  indictment. 

"  Penn. — I  say  it  is  my  place  to  speak  to  matter  of  law ;  I  am  ar- 
raigned a  prisoner ;  my  liberty,  which  is  next  to  life  itself,  is  now 
concerned  ;  you  are  many  mouths  and  ears  against  me,  and  if  I  must 
not  be  allowed  to  make  the  best  of  my  case,  it  is  hard,  I  say  again, 
unless  you  shew  me,  and  the  people,  the  law  you  ground  your  indict- 
ment upon,  I  shall  take  it  for  granted,  your  proceedings  are  merely 
arbitrary. 

"  Observer. — (At  this  time  several  upon  the  bench  urged,  hard 
upon  the  prisoner,  to  bear  him  down.) 

"  Recorder. — The  question  is,  whether  you  are  guilty  of  this  in- 
dictment ? 

"  Penn. — The  question  is  not  whether  I  am  guilty  of  this  indict- 
ment but  whether  this  indictment  be  legal.  It  is  too  general  and 
imperfect  an  answer,  to  say  it  is  the  common  law,  unless  we  know 
both  where  and  what  it  is ;  for  where  there  is  no  law,  there  is  no 
transgression,  and  that  law  which  is  not  in  being,  is  so  far  from  being 
common,  that  it  is  no  law  at  all. 

"  Recorder. — You  are  an  impertinent  fellow ;  will  you  teach  the 
Court  what  law  is  ?  It's  lex  non  scripta,  that  which  many  have 
studied  thirty  or  forty  yean  to  know,  and  would  you  have  me  tell 
you  in  a  moment  ? 

"  Penn. — Certainly,  if  the  common  law  be  so  hard  to  be  under- 
stood, it's  far  from  being  very  common ;  but  if  the  Lord  Coke  in  his 
Institutes  be  of  any  consideration,  he  tells  us  that  common  law  is 
common  right ;  and  that  common  right  is  the  great  charter  of  privi- 
leges, confirmed  9  Hen.  III.  29 ;  25  Edw.  I.  I ;  2  Edw.  III.  8 ; 
Coke's  Insts.  2  p.  56. 

143 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

"  Recorder, — Sir,  you  are  a  troublesome  fellow,  and  it  is  not  for 
the  honor  of  the  court  to  suffer  you  to  go  on. 

"  Penn. — I  have  asked  but  one  question,  and  you  have  not  an- 
swered me ;  though  the  rights  and  privileges  of  every  Englishman 
be  concerned  in  it. 

*♦*»♦»♦# 

"  Recorder. — Take  him  away ;  my  Lord,  if  you  take  not  some 
course  with  this  pestilent  fellow,  to  stop  his  mouth,  we  shall  not  be 
able  to  do  anything  to-night. 

"  Mayor. — Take  him  away,  take  him  away !  turn  him  into  the 
Bale^ock." 

Penn  stood  up  sturdily  for  what  he  believed  to  be 
his  rights  and  the  rights  of  all  Englishmen  ;  but  we 
have  not  space  to  quote  all  his  arguments,  some  of 
which  he  shouted  across  the  room  to  the  court  and 
jury  when  removed  to  the  distance  of  the  bale-dock. 

When  the  jury  were  called  upon  for  their  verdict 
they  announced  that  they  found  Penn  "  guilty  of 
speaking  in  Gracious  street."  This  was,  of  course, 
no  crime,  and  the  court  stormed  at  them  to  make 
their  verdict  read  **  guilty  of  speaking  in  Gracious 
Street  to  an  unlawful  assembly."  But  they  would 
go  no  further  than  to  say  "  guilty  of  speaking  to  an 
assembly  in  Gracious  street ;"  and  neither  the  threats 
of  the  court  nor  two  days'  starvation  would  induce 
them  to  put  in  the  word  unlawful.  It  was,  of  course, 
their  covert  way  of  mocking  at  the  court  and  at- 
tacking the  law  and  policy  that  attempted  to  sup- 
press the  worship  of  dissenters. 

They  were  sent  out  again  and  again,  but  every 
time  they  returned  with  the  same  mock  verdict.  At 
each  of  their  returns  there  would  be  discussion, 
savage  threats  from  the  bench,  and  protests  from 
Pena 


TRIAL  BY  JURY  AND   HAT   HONOR 

«*  Penn. — It  is  intolerable  that  my  jury  should  be  thus  menaced ;  is 
this  according  to  the  fundamental  law  ?  Are  not  they  my  proper  judges 
by  the  Great  Charter  of  England  ?  What  hope  is  there  of  ever  having 
justice  done  when  juries  are  threatened  and  their  verdict  rejected? 

♦  *  *  *  *  *  *  ¥: 

**  Mayor. — Stop  his  mouth;  jailor,  bring  fetters  and  stake  him  to 
the  ground. 

"  Penn. — Do  your  pleasure,  I  matter  not  your  fetters. 

**  Recorder. — Till  now  I  never  understood  the  reason  of  the  policy 
and  prudence  of  the  Spaniards,  in  suffering  the  Inquisition  among 
them;  and  certainly  it  will  never  be  well  with  us  till  something  like 
the  Spanish  Inquisition  be  in  England."  — 

After  having  been  kept  out  two  days  and  two 
nights  without  beds  or  food  the  jury  brought  in  a 
verdict  of  not  guilty,  which  being  in  regular  form, 
the  court  was  reluctantly  obliged  to  accept  it.  But 
the  judges  were  determined  to  get  even  with  the  jury 
and  Penn  in  another  way. 

"  Recorder. — I  am  sorry,  gentlemen,  you  have  followed  your  own 
judgment  and  opinions  rather  than  the  good  and  wholesome  advice 
which  was  given  you.  God  keep  my  life  out  of  your  hands  ;  but  for 
this  the  court  fines  you  forty  marks  a  man,  and  imprisonment  till 
paid ;  at  which  Penn  stept  forward  towards  the  bench,  and  said : 

"Penn. — I  demand  my  liberty,  being  freed  by  the  jury. 

"  Mayor. — No,  you  are  in  for  your  fines. 

"  Penn. — Fines  for  what  ? 

"  Mayor, — For  contempt  of  the  court. 

"  Penn. — I  ask  if  it  be  according  to  the  fundamental  laws  of  Eng- 
land, that  any  Englishman  should  be  fined  or  amerced  but  by  the 
judgment  of  his  peers  or  jury  ?  since  it  expressly  contradicts  the 
fourteenth  and  twenty-ninth  chapter  of  the  Great  Charter  of  Eng- 
land which  says.  No  freeman  ought  to  be  amerced,  but  by  the  oath 
of  good  and  lawful  men  of  the  vicinage. 

"  Recorder. — Take  him  away,  take  him  away,  take  him  out  the 
court. 

"  Penn. — I  can  never  urge  the  fundamental  laws  of  England  but 
you  cry,  Take  him  away,  take  him  away ;  but  'tis  no  wonder,  since 
the  Spanish  Inquisition  hath  so  great  a  place  in  the  Recorder's  heart. 
God  Almighty,  who  is  just,  will  judge  you  for  all  these  things." 
xo  145 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

Both  Penn  and  the  jury  were  thrust  into  the  bale- 
dock  and  thence  sent  to  Newgate  until  they  should 
pay  their  fines.  The  jury  demanded  their  freedom 
every  six  hours,  and,  regarding  themselves  as  mar- 
tyrs, refused  to  pay  the  fines. 

**  I  in  treat  thee,"  wrote  Penn  to  his  father,  "not  to 
purchase  my  liberty.  They  will  repent  them  of 
their  proceedings.  I  am  now  a  prisoner  notoriously 
against  law."  And  in  another  letter,  he  wrote, 
"  Considering  I  cannot  be  free,  but  upon  such  terms 
as  strengthening  their  arbitrary  and  base  proceed- 
ings, I  shall  rather  choose  to  suffer  any  hardship.  .  .  . 
My  present  restraint  is  so  far  from  being  humor,  that 
I  would  rather  perish  than  release  myself  by  so  in- 
direct a  course  as  to  satiate  their  revengeful,  avari- 
cious appetites." 

It  was  an  interesting  picture  of  the  times  and  of 
Anglo-Saxon  sturdiness, — Penn  and  the  jury  vigor- 
ously standing  by  what  they  believed  to  be  their 
rights  and  remaining  in  the  vileness  of  Newgate 
when  they  could  have  purchased  their  liberty  for  a 
trifle. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  the  jury  had 
been  not  a  little  contumacious  in  continually  bring- 
ing in  a  mock  verdict  It  was,  of  course,  their  way 
of  showing  their  contempt  for  the  whole  proceeding, 
and  their  sympathy  for  the  Quakers  and  all  other 
dissenters  whose  worship  was  interfered  with.  But 
they  could  have  shown  their  contempt  just  as  effica- 
ciously by  at  once  bringing  in  a  verdict  of  not 
guilty.  It  was  perhaps  right  that  they  should  be 
fined  for  such  irregular  conduct     But  it  was  a  ques- 

146 


TRIAL  BY  JURY   AND   HAT   HONOR 

tion  whether  the  court  could  impose  the  fine  without 
trying  them  in  the  usual  way  before  another  jury. 
The  court  claimed  the  right  to  fine  without  trial,  and 
the  obstinacy  of  Penn's  jury  in  remaining  in  prison 
seems  to  have  brought  the  question  to  a  decision. 
It  was  argued  at  length  before  the  Court  of  Com- 
mon Pleas,  which  decided  that  the  jury's  view  of 
the  law  was  sound.  The  order  inflicting  their  fines 
was  rescinded  and  they  were  set  at  liberty. 

Penn's  case  was  somewhat  different  If  he  had 
insisted  on  wearing  his  hat  in  court  after  it  had  been 
taken  off  by  the  officers,  the  judges  would  have  been 
right  in  fining  him.  Removal  of  the  hat  was  an  act 
of  respect  paid  in  every  court  of  justice,  and  still 
paid,  for  even  the  Quakers  do  not  now  insist  on 
wearing  their  hats  in  court.  People  could  not  be 
allowed  to  appear  naked  in  court  or  commit  any 
other  offensive  act  and  claim  exemption  from  pun- 
ishment on  the  ground  of  religion.  But  according 
to  the  report  of  the  trial  Penn's  hat  was  removed  by 
an  officer  when  he  came  into  court,  and  the  court 
ordered  the  hat  put  on  again  so  as  to  have  a  chance 
to  badger  and  fine  him  for  wearing  it.  This  was  cer- 
tainly inexcusable,  and  Penn  was  right  in  protesting 
against  such  a  fine. 

The  account  we  have  of  the  trial  was  published 
soon  after  the  trial  was  held,  with  a  preface  and  a 
long  appendix,  which  discussed  very  fully  all  the 
questions  of  civil  liberty  involved,  and  had  a  great 
deal  to  say  of  Magna  Charta  and  other  sources  of 
British  freedom.  As  this  account  was  apparently 
prepared  by  the  Quakers,  it  is  possible  that  it  may 

147 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

be  too  highly  colored  and  too  favorable  to  Penn  and 
Mead.  Some  one,  signing  himself  "S.  S.,"  wrote 
an  answer  to  it,  attacking  Penn's  father  for  stealing 
prize-money  and  amassing  ill-gotten  riches  for  a  con- 
scientious fool  of  a  son,  who  made  such  a  noise  in 
court  that  the  judge  could  not  charge  the  jury.  As 
for  the  Quakers,  they  were  a  libelling,  lying,  discon- 
tented people,  who  would  set  the  country  in  a  flame. 
When  the  king  seized  their  meeting-house,  they 
broke  in  the  doors,  overpowered  the  constables,  and 
kicked  and  spurned  the  officers  who  attempted  to 
break  up  their  unlawful  assembly.  Against  this 
attack  Penn  wrote  a  long  reply  called  "  Truth  Res- 
cued from  Imposture  ;"  and,  reading  all  these  three 
documents  to^ycthenit  does  not  seem  that  the  origi- 
'nal  (^aker;ire£ortjof  the  trial  is  at  all  seriously 
impugne^ 

The  publication  of  the  report  and  the  sturdy  con- 
duct of  Penn  and  William  Mead,  as  described  in 
it,  were  unquestionably  useful.  It  was  another  effort 
in  the  long  struggle  of  Anglo-Saxon  liberty  ;  and 
although  it  is  not  possible  to  point  to  any  specific 
change  in  criminal  trials  as  the  result  of  it,  yet, 
together  with  the  other  protests,  it  gradually,  in  the 
course  of  years,  educated  public  opinion  and  wrought 
the  improvement  which  has  now  long  been  enjoyed 
in  all  English-speaking  countries. 

How  long  Penn  and  Mead  might  have  remained 
in  prison  as  a  protest  against  their  arbitrary  judges 
we  cannot  say ;  for  Penn's  father  brought  the  im- 
prisonment to  a  speedy  termination.  The  admiral's 
health  was   rapidly  declining.     In  his  irritated  and 

14S 


TRIAL  BY  JURY   AND   HAT  HONOR 

anxious  state  he  could  no  longer  bear  the  annoyance 
of  his  son's  imprisonment,  and  he  could  not  bear  the 
thought  of  dying  without  seeing  him.  The  question 
of  principle  which  seemed  of  so  much  importance 
to  the  son  was  in  the  father's  eyes  a  silly  sentiment. 
So,  in  spite  of  the  son's  protest,  the  father  paid  his 
fine  and  also  that  of  William  Mead,  and  they  were 
at  once  set  free. 

When  Penn  reached  home  he  found  that  his  father 
had  only  a  few  days  to  live.  Their  meeting  must 
have  been  an  affecting  one.  The  admiral  had  been 
thinking  what  terrible  things  might  happen  in  the 
future  to  his  stubborn  offspring,  who  had  such  a  pas- 
sion for  making  a  martyr  of  himself  in  loathsome 
prisons.  He  had  accordingly  sent  a  friend  to  the 
Duke  of  York  to  make  his  dying  request  that  the 
duke  would  watch  over  his  son  and  intercede  with 
the  king  when  necessary  for  his  protection.  Both 
the  duke  and  the  king  sent  back  the  kindest  answers 
and  promises,  which  must  have  greatly  relieved  the 
dying  admiral  ;  and  these  promises  were  afterwards 
fulfilled  to  the  letter. 

The  admiral  could  no  longer  quarrel  with  his  son  ; 
natural  affection  had  got  the  better  of  all  other  feel- 
ings. But  the  low  spirits  and  irritation  which  ac- 
company the  gout  turned  his  mind  to  despondency 
and  melancholy.  He  seemed  to  be  no  longer  the 
cavalier  admiral  and  courtier.  He  declaimed  against 
the  wickedness  and  impurity  of  the  age  like  a  Puri- 
tan and  prophesied  judgments  upon  England  for  the 
dissolute  and  profane  lives  of  her  gentry  and  no- 
bility.    His  son  describes  him  as  very  repentant. 

149 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

•*  Son  William,  I  am  weary  of  the  world.  I  would  not  live  over 
my  days  again  if  I  could  command  them  with  a  wish  ;  for  the  snares 
of  life  are  greater  than  the  fears  of  death.  This  troubles  me  that  I 
have  offended  a  gracious  God. 

"  The  thought  of  that  has  followed  me  to  this  day.  Oh !  have  a 
care  of  sin !  It  is  that  which  is  the  sting  both  of  life  and  death. 
Three  things  I  commend  to  you : 

"  First. — Let  nothing  in  this  world  tempt  you  to  wrong  your  con- 
science ;  so  you  will  keep  peace  at  home,  which  will  be  a  feast  to 
you  in  the  day  of  trouble. 

*♦  Secondly. — Whatever  you  design  to  do,  lay  it  justly  and  time  it 
seasonably,  for  that  gives  security  and  despatch. 

"  Lastly. — Be  not  troubled  at  disappointments,  for  if  they  may  be 
recovered,  do  it ;  if  they  cannot,  trouble  is  vain.  If  you  could  not 
have  helped  it,  be  content ;  there  is  often  peace  and  profit  in  sub- 
mitting to  Providence :  for  afflictions  make  wise.  If  you  could  have 
helped  it,  let  not  your  trouble  exceed  instruction  for  another  time. 

♦•  These  rules  will  carry  you  with  firmness  and  comfort  through 
this  inconstant  world." 

The  admiral  died  on  the  1 6th  of  September,  1 670, 
and  with  almost  his  last  breath  said  to  his  son, — 

"  If  you  and  your  friends  keep  to  your  plain  way  of  preaching  and 
to  your  plain  way  of  living,  you  will  make  an  end  of  the  priests  to 
the  end  of  the  world.  Bury  me  by  my  mother.  Live  in  love. 
Shun  all  manner  of  evil,  and  I  pray  God  to  bless  you  all,  and  he 
will  bless  you." 


ISO 


PENN    BECOMES    RICH,    AND   ALSO,    THEY   SAID,  A    DAN- 
GEROUS   MAN 

At  his  father's  death  Penn  came  into  possession 
of  a  handsome  estate.  At  least,  so  we  are  informed 
by  that  old  biography  by  Besse,  much  relied  upon 
by  all  subsequent  biographers,  and  prefixed  to  the 
edition  of  Penn's  writings  published  in  1726,  not 
long  after  his  death.  His  subsequent  biographer, 
Clarkson,  goes  a  step  farther,  and  fixes  the  value  of 
this  estate  as  yielding  an  income  of  at  least  fifteen 
hundred  pounds  a  year.  Clarkson  gives  no  author- 
ity, and  his  statement  is  probably  only  a  guess  or 
some  tradition  he  had  heard  among  the  Quakers.  If 
it  is  correct,  Penn  was  one  of  the  rich  young  men  of 
his  day,  for  fifteen  hundred  pounds  a  year  was  easily 
the  equivalent  of  thirty  thousand  dollars  a  year  in 
our  time. 

Penn  had  a  younger  brother  and  a  sister,  and  his 
mother  was  also  still  living.  As  the  eldest  son  he 
may  have  had  the  largest  share  of  the  family  estate  ; 
but  if  the  mother  and  the  other  two  children  were 
in  any  way  suitably  provided  for,  the  admiral  had 
attained  one  of  the  great  ambitions  of  his  life, — the 
accumulation  of  a  family  fortune. 

But,  independently  of  the  exact  amount  of  his  in- 
come, we  know  from  several  contemporary  sources 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

that  Penn's  fortune  was  regarded  at  that  time  as  a 
ratlier  large  one.  He,  indeed,  once  described  him- 
self as  a  man  "  of  great  acquaintance  and  plentiful 
estate."  He  was  reviled  and  ridiculed  by  cavaliers 
as  a  youth  of  ability,  opportunities,  and  wealth,  who 
was  fooling  them  all  away  with  the  silly  Quakers. 

"  I  vow  Mr.  Penn  I  am  sorry  for  you,"  said  Sir  John  Robinson, 
the  lieutenant  of  the  Tower;  "you  are  an  ingenious  gentleman,  all 
the  world  must  allow  you  and  do  allow  you  that,  and  you  have  a 
plentiful  estate.  Why  should  you  render  yourself  unhappy  by  asso- 
ciating with  such  a  simple  people  ?'* 

•*  I  confess,"  replied  Penn, "  I  hive  made  it  my  choice  to  relinquish 
the  company  of  those  that  are  ingeniously  wicked,  to  converse  with 
those  that  are  more  honestly  simple." 

And,  indeed,  neither  the  death  of  his  father  nor 
the  sudden  possession  of  a  large,  independent  fortune 
checked  him  for  a  moment  in  his  efforts  for  the 
honestly  simple  folk,  as  he  called  them,  whose  faith 
he  had  made  his  own.  Almost  immediately  after 
his  father's  death  he  challenged  to  public  controversy 
a  Baptist  preacher  named  Ives.  This  Ives  had  in 
one  of  his  sermons  attacked  both  Penn  and  the 
Quakers  ;  and  to  call  him  to  account  and  answer 
him  would,  according  to  the  standard  of  those  times, 
advance  the  Quaker  cause. 

A  meeting  was  arranged  at  Wycombe ;  but  Ives 
himself  did  not  appear.  His  brother  came  to  de- 
fend the  Baptists,  and,  according  to  the  rules  of  these 
religious  duels,  he,  as  representing  the  assailant,  was 
obliged  to  speak  first  He  brought  with  him  a 
speech  ready  prepared,  which  when  he  had  delivered 
he  immediately  left  the  house  accompanied  by  some 

152 


PENN   BECOMES  RICH 

of  his  followers.  This  was  an  old  trick,  and  often 
a  very  effective  one.  The  design  was  to  state 
his  own  side,  and  then  by  his  sudden  departure  in 
the  heat  of  his  speech  carry  away  enough  of  the 
audience  to  leave  his  opponent  speaking  to  empty 
benches.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  a  fervid  clap-trap 
orator  might  be  very  successful  in  this,  and  turn  the 
other  side  into  a  laughing-stock  for  the  whole 
county. 

But  Ives,  it  seems,  was  not  sufficiently  fervid  ;  for, 
according  to  the  account  the  Quakers  have  given 
of  this  controversy,  most  of  the  people  remained  to 
hear  Penn,  and  were  so  well  pleased  with  him  that 
they  were  disgusted  with  Ives  when  he  returned  to 
upbraid  them  for  remaining. 

Penn  at  this  time  seems  to  have  been  travelling 
through  the  counties  of  Bucks  and  Oxford  preach- 
ing and  assisting  the  Quakers ;  and  he  soon  found  a 
more  important  person  to  attack  than  the  tricky 
Ives.  He  was  near  the  great  university  from  which 
he  had  been  expelled  for  his  religion,  and  he  found 
that  the  students  who  inclined  towards  Quakerism 
were  treated  worse  than  ever.  The  vice-chancellor, 
as  the  Quaker  historians  inform  us,  employed  spies 
to  go  among  the  Quakers  and  Baptists  and  lead 
them  to  express  themselves  incautiously  or  in  a  way 
that  might  be  construed  as  traitorous  language. 

No  doubt  this  vice-chancellor,  like  many  other 
Royalists  at  that  time,  may  have  had  an  honest  sus- 
picion that  the  Quakers  would  in  the  end  become  a 
dangerous  political  party  and  attempt  the  overthrow 
of  the  government     They  were  so  radical  and  so 

153 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

strange  in  their  opinions  and  conduct,  so  fearless  and 
desperate,  that  they  might  become  Fifth  Monarchy 
men  or  worse.  No  doubt,  also,  the  Quakers,  when 
smarting  under  the  punishments  of  the  law,  used 
severe  language  about  government  and  authority,  so 
that  the  detectives  of  those  times  might  easily  collect 
what  would  seem  to  be  very  strong  evidence  of  dan- 
gerous political  intentions. 

Penn,  however,  saw  in  the  vice-chancellor  only  a 
ferocious  beast  that  was  persecuting  his  people,  and 
he  wrote  a  letter  telling  him  so,  in  language  which 
is  not  now  usually  used  by  graduates  in  addressing 
the  chancellor  of  their  alma  mater.  He  used  thee 
and  thou  ;  for  this  was  one  of  the  occasions  when  he 
intended  to  be  offensive. 

"  Shall  the  multiplied  oppressions  which  thou  coniinuest  to  heap 
upon  innocent  English  people  for  their  peaceable  religious  meetings 
pass  unregarded  by  the  Eternal  God  ?  Dost  thou  think  to  escape  his 
fierce  wrath  and  dreadful  vengeance  for  thy  ungodly  and  illegal  per- 
secution of  his  poor  children  ?  I  tell  thee,  no.  Better  were  it  for 
thee  hadst  thou  never  been  bom.  Poor  mushroom,  wilt  thou  war 
against  the  Lord,  and  lift  up  thyself  in  battle  against  the  Almighty  ? 
Canst  thou  frustrate  his  holy  purposes,  and  bring  his  determination 
to  nought  ?  He  has  decreed  to  exalt  himself  by  us,  and  to  propagate 
his  gospel  to  the  ends  of  the  earth." 

In  this  same  year  he  wrote  a  pamplet  against 
the  Roman  church  called  "A  Seasonable  Caveat 
against  Popery."  It  was  an  answer  to  a  pamphlet 
called  "An  Explanation  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Belief;"  and  yet  his  motive  for  this  attack  on  the 
Romanists  is  not  clear,  unless  he  was  trying  to  offset 
the  charge  that  he  was  a  Jesuit  The  Quakers 
were  continually  being  called  Jesuits,  and  Penn  was 

154 


PENN  BECOMES  RICH 

called  a  Jesuit  in   disguise  for  the  next  twenty  or 
thirty  years. 

This  seems  strange  at  first,  but  it  is  easily  under- 
stood when  we  consider  the  condition  of  things  at 
that  time.  The  secret  methods  of  the  Roman 
church  to  get  possession  of  the  British  government 
were  greatly  dreaded  in  England,  and  the  fear  of 
them  could  at  times  create  a  panic.  The  Quakers 
were  so  peculiar,  and  it  was  so  strange  for  a  rich 
young  cavalier  like  Penn  to  join  them,  that  people 
found  difficulty  in  believing  that  their  oddities  were 
not  a  cloak  for  some  dark  and  horrid  Jesuit  design, 
some  wholesale  gunpowder  plot. 

In  his  "Caveat"  Penn  belabored  the  Romanists 
and  the  Jesuits  in  a  way  that  in  the  minds  of  some 
no  doubt  freed  him  from  the  suspicion  of  Jesuitism, 
and  in  the  minds  of  others  confirmed  their  suspicions. 
He  warned  the  English  people  against  their  ancient 
enemy,  who,  from  having  been  partially  subdued,  was 
now  become  more  cunning  and  complaisant  than  ever. 
Her  doctrine  is  the  doctrine  of  devils  ;  her  priests, 
though  forbidden  to  marry,  "  keep  as  many  strum- 
pets as  their  purse  or  lust  shall  please,"  while  the/ 
revenue  of  the  Pope  is  enhanced  by  licensing  under 
his  own  seal  the  resorts  of  these  debased  women. 
He  quotes  book  and  page  of  the  casuists  to  show 
how  they  openly  justify  fornication,  perjury,  and 
theft 

Against  transubstantiation  he  argues,  in  the  rug- 
ged manner  of  the  time,  that  if  the  bread  and  wine 
become  the  actual  flesh  and  blood  of  Christ  by  the 
mere  word  of  the  priest,  "  the  creature  (and  some- 

155 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

times  a  sad  one,  too)  makes  his  creator,  which  is 
nothing  short  of  wretched  blasphemy,  and  the  Lord 
they  adore  and  reverence  they  eat" 

Such  violent    religious  controversy  as   Penn    in- 
dulged in  with  vice-chancellors,  Romanists,  and  Bap- 
tists has  long  since  gone  out  of  fashion,  and  is  sup- 
posed to  be  unbecoming  a  Christian.     Dr.  Stoughton, 
one  of  Penn's  biographers,  apologizes  for  the  savage 
way  in  which  his  Quaker  hero  assails  his  opponents. 
But  such   apologies   are  entirely  unnecessary.     To 
fight  and  struggle  for  a  faith  was  at  that  time  the 
price  of  having  it     Toleration  and  religious  liberty 
in  the  modern  sense  were  scarcely  known.     No  re- 
ligion was  then  respectable  except  that  which  came 
of  fighting  and  suffering ;  for,  as  Penn  said  to  Sir 
John  Robinson,  "  I  scorn  that  religion  which  is  not 
worth  suffering  for  and  able  to  sustain  those  that  are 
afflicted  for  it" 
/   The  religion  of  that  time  was  the  religion  militant, 
/  as  the  religion  of  our  time  is  the  religion  acquies- 
I     cent     But  it  would  hardly  be  possible  for  us  now  to 
\   be  so  acquiescent  and  easy  if  militant  men  like  Penn 
\had  not  secured  for  us  the  religious  liberty  we  enjoy. 
Towards  the  close  of  this  very  active  year  of  his 
life,  1670,  Penn  was  back  again  in  London  and  went 
one  day  to  a  meeting  in  Wheeler  Street     A  ser- 
geant in  command  of  a  party  of  soldiers  waited  at 
the  door,  and  as  soon  as  Penn  began  to  preach  they 
rushed  in,  dragged  him  down,  and  he  was  carried  to 
the  Tower.     This  arrest  seems  to  have  been  by  the 
special  order  of  Sir  John  Robinson,  the  lieutenant  1 
of  the  Tower,  who  as  alderman  had  been  one  of  the 

156 


PENN  BECOMES  RICH 

court  that  had  tried  Penn  and  William  Mead  when 
the  jury  refused  to  convict  them. 

In  the  evening  Penn  was  taken  from  the  Tower 
by  an  officer  with  a  file  of  musqueteers  to  Sir  John 
Robinson,  whom  he  found  in  company  with  some 
of  the  others  who  had  composed  the  court,  and  they 
inflicted  on  their  victim  an  examination  from  which 
we  have  already  several  times  quoted  passages.  As 
we  read  it  now  it  seems  like  a  most  wanton,  unlaw- 
ful, and  cruel  inquisition  of  an  unoffending  man. 
The  arrest,  too,  by  soldiers  without  a  sworn  warrant, 
and  the  imprisonment  without  trial  are  very  shock- 
ing to  all  modern  ideas  of  civil  liberty. 

Robinson  and  the  other  judges  having  failed  to 
convict  Penn  with  the  jury,  were  evidently  deter- 
mined to  catch  him  in  another  trap.  But  as  we  are 
writing  history  we  must  not  be  too  quick  to  accept 
the  statement  of  the  Quakers  that  the  conduct  of 
these  judges  was  mere  vindictive  wickedness  and 
cruelty.  It  is  more  probable  that  as  officials  whose 
careers  and  livelihood  were  dependent  on  the  Royalist 
and  Church  party  then  in  power,  they  believed,  or,  if 
you  will,  had  deceived  themselves  into  believing, 
that  the  Quakers  were  politically  dangerous  and  that 
this  young  cavalier  Penn  was  aspiring  to  be  a  sort 
of  Cromwell  who  would  in  the  end  gather  about  him 
Puritans,  Fifth  Monarchy  men,  and  other  democratic 
and  radical  sects  to  accomplish  unknown  purposes 
of  his  own.  For  his  own  sake  as  well  as  for  the 
peace  of  the  government  the  reckless  young  fellow 
should  be  suppressed. 

I  do  not  suggest  this  as  a  legal  excuse  for  such  a 
157 


p 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

breach  of  civil  rights  as  they  committed,  but  I  sug- 
gest it  as  a  reasonable  explanation  of  their  conduct, 
fully  borne  out  by  the  questions  they  asked  in  the 
examination.  Their  main  object  seems  to  have  been 
to  offer  Penn  the  oath  of  allegiance,  which  they 
knew  as  a  Quaker  he  might  refuse  to  take,  because 
he  professed,  or,  as  they  probably  thought,  pre- 
tended, to  be  opposed  to  all  oaths.  2©  they 
called  on  him  to  swear  that  he  would  not  on  any 
pretence  take  arms  against  the  king,  and  that  he  did 
abhor  that  traitorous  position,  which  the  Puritans  had 
so  often  assumed,  of  thinking  it  lawful  to  take  arms 
against  a  king  who  was  in  error  or  whose  ministers 
were  leading  him  into  error ;  and  they  also  asked 
him  to  swear  that  he  would  never  attempt  any  altera- 
tion of  government  either  in  church  or  state. 

All  this  he  refused  to  do,  so  they  had  full  scope  to 
taunt  him.  He  explained  that  his  religion  protected 
him  from  the  necessity  of  taking  such  an  oath,  *'  for," 
said  he,  "if  I  cannot  fight  against  any  man  (much 
less  against  the  king),  what  need  I  take  an  oath  not 
to  do  it  ?  Should  I  sware  not  to  do  what  is  already 
against  my  conscience  to  do  ?" 

We  can  easily  understand  that  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  judges  this  explanation  seemed  like  a 
mere  subtlety.  So,  while  professing  to  have  a  kindly 
feeling  for  him  for  his  father's  sake,  they  treated  him 
with  haughty  contempt,  sneered  at  his  morality,  and 
reminded  him  of  his  wealth  and  position  and  the 
degradation  he  was  bringing  on  himself;  and  Penn 
replied  to  all  this  with  a  manliness  which  has  made 
this  examination  very  famous  in  his  sect 

158 


PENN  BECOMES   RICH 

But  the  more  ability  he  showed  the  more  dan- 
gerous he  seemed,  and  when  he  began  to  talk  about 
Hberty  of  conscience,  Robinson  said, — 

*•  But  you  do  nothing  but  stir  up  the  people  to  sedition ;  and  there 
was  one  of  your  friends  that  told  me  you  preached  sedition  and  med- 
dled with  the  government." 

To  this  Penn  replied, — 

"  We  have  the  unhappiness  to  be  misrepresented,  and  I  am  not  the 
least  concerned  therein.  Bring  me  the  man  that  will  dare  to  justify 
this  accusation  to  my  face,  and  if  I  am  not  able  to  make  it  appear 
that  it  is  both  my  practice  and  all  my  friends  to  instill  principles  of 
peace  and  moderation  (and  only  war  against  spiritual  wickedness, 
that  all  men  may  be  brought  to  fear  God  and  work  righteousness),  I 
shall  contentedly  undergo  the  severest  punishment  all  your  laws  can 
expose  me  to. 

"  As  for  the  king,  I  make  this  offer,  that  if  any  living  can  make  it 
appear,  directly  or  indirectly,  from  the  time  I  have  been  called  a 
Quaker  (since  from  thence  you  date  me  seditious),  I  have  contrived 
or  acted  anything  injurious  to  his  person,  or  the  English  government, 
I  shall  submit  my  person  to  your  utmost  cruelties,  and  esteem  them 
all  but  a  due  recompense.  It  is  hard  that  I,  being  innocent,  should 
be  reputed  guilty ;  but  the  will  of  God  be  done.  I  accept  of  bad 
reports  as  well  as  good." 

'  But  his  judges  were  unconvinced.  "  You  will  be 
the  heading  of  parties  and  drawing  people  after  you," 
said  Robinson,  and  he  ordered  him  to  be  confined 
in  Newgate,  at  that  time  the  vilest  of  prisons,  where 
hundreds  of  Quakers  had  already  been  thrust  in 
among  felons  and  pickpockets. 

It  was  a  severe  imprisonment,  and  lasted  six 
months.  People  of  means  who  were  confined  in 
Newgate  could  get  away  from  some  of  the  stench, 
dirt,  and  disease  by  hiring  rooms  from  the  keepers. 
Penn  at  first  tried  this  ;  but  the  jailers  were  so  extor- 

159 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

donate  and  abusive  that  he  left  their  lodgings  and 
allowed  himself  to  be  cast  into  what  he  calls  "  the 
common  stinking  jail."  i 

It  was  a  strange  situation  for  a  man  of  his  educa-  i 
tion  and  accomplishments,  and  one  which  we  can 
now  hardly  realize  ;  and  it  seems  still  stranger  when 
we  find  that  while  in  this  horrid  confinement  he 
managed  to  write  several  religious  essays  and  a  very 
learned  pamphlet  called  "The  Great  Case  of  Liberty 
of  Conscience  once  more  briefly  Debated  and  De- 
fended by  the  Authority  of  Reason,  Scripture,  and 
Antiquity." 

The  chief  object  of  this  pamphlet  seems  to  have 
been  to  argue  against  the  steadily  increasing  belief 
that  the  Quakers  were  disseminators  of  sedition  and 
nourished  secret  designs  against  the  government 
This  belief  Penn  said  was  a  mere  supposition  founded 
on  nothing  stronger  than  conjecture.  The  Quaker 
meetings  were  open  to  every  one  ;  they  were  usually 
very  numerously  attended  ;  and  how  could  plots  and 
sedition  be  hatched  in  such  great  meetings  ?  He 
defied  any  one  to  bring  forward  the  slightest  proof  of 
any  preaching  at  these  meetings  hostile  to  authority  ; 
and  he  declared  for  himself  and  his  people  that  they 
held  no  principle  destructive  of  government,  and 
were  ready  to  engage  by  God's  assistance  to  lead 
peaceable,  just,  and  industrious  lives.  But  if  this 
statement  was  discredited,  and  the  cruel  punishments 
were  continued,  they  would  nevertheless  hold  their 
meetings  to  the  bitter  end  in  spite  of  punishment 

For  general  liberty  of  conscience  to  every  one  he 
argued  in  a  way  which  seems  very  tedious  and  un- 

i6o 


PENN  BECOMES   RICH 

necessary  now  that  we  have  so  long  enjoyed  entire 
freedom  in  religion.  He  argued  for  it  on  minute 
grounds  of  reason,  of  natural  right,  of  policy,  and  of 
morals.  Persecution  was  inconsistent  with  the  Ref- 
ormation and  inconsistent  with  the  protests  against  the 
cruelty  of  the  Roman  church.  It  was  also  a  serious 
injury  to  trade  and  commerce  and  the  growth  of 
population.  So  many  families  were  being  broken 
up  and  ruined,  and  so  much  property  destroyed  by 
persecution,  that  the  development  of  the  country  was 
seriously  checked  ;  and,  as  he  usually  did  in  these 
discussions,  he  gave  Holland  as  a  remarkable  instance 
of  a  country  that  had  greatly  increased  its  trade  and 
power  by  granting  liberty.  He  quoted,  also,  the  say- 
ings of  innumerable  sages  and  saints  of  all  periods  of 
history  in  favor  of  liberty  ;  and  he  discussed,  also,  the 
passages  of  scripture  that  favored  it.  He  must  have 
had  books  brought  to  him  in  prison,  or  else  he  had 
had  these  quotations  by  him  for  some  time,  for  like 
the  quotations  in  **  No  Cross,  No  Crown,"  they  imply 
a  great  deal  of  reading  and  access  to  a  good  library. 


I6i 


X 


.^ 


XI 

REST   AND   A   SWEETHEART 


-7 

o  When  Penn  was  discharged  from  Newgate  after 


his  six  months'  imprisonment  he  travelled  for  a  time 
in  Holland  and  Germany ;  and  no  doubt  Sir  John 
Robinson  and  the  other  judges  congratulated  them- 
selves on  having  broken  up  the  dangerous  plans  of 
the  foolish  young  cavalier  and  weaned  him  from  his 
delusion. 

The  reasons  for  his  journey  are  unknown.  Pos- 
sibly, as  he  found  he  was  so  seriously  suspected  of 
political  intentions,  he  may  have  thought  it  would  be 
well  to  go  away  for  a  time  and  let  the  suspicions  die 
out  Perhaps,  too,  his  health  had  suffered,  and  he 
needed  a  change.  For  three  years  he  had  led  a 
very  strenuous  life  of  controversy,  preaching  and 
writing,  and  half  of  those  three  years  had  been 
passed  in  loathsome  prisons. 

He  has  left  us  no  account  of  this  journey,  as  he 
did  of  a  subsequent  one  to  the  same  countries  ;  but 
from  the  few  scraps  of  information  we  have  about  it, 
he  seems  to  have  been  still  following  his  great  mis- 
sion. There  were  people  in  those  countries  who 
were  in  the  Seeker  state  of  mind,  disgusted  with  the 
corruption  of  religion  which  they  saw  around  them, 
and  already  tinged  with  the  first  principles  of  Qua- 
kerisnx      Possibly,   they  were    not  ^t  this  time  so 

162 


(ill.l    .M'KlN(;Kn,    I'KNN'S    KJkST    WJKK 


i 


REST  AND  A  SWEETHEART 

numerous  as  they  afterwards  became,  or  Penn  would 
have  had   more   to   say  about   them. 

At  Emden,  however,  he  found  a  physician  named 
Hasbert  in  a  receptive  state  of  mind,  and  through 
him  ten  other  people  of  the  town  held  a  silent  meeting 
in  the  doctor's  house.  But  this  strange  worship 
roused  terrible  suspicions,  and  these  unfortunate 
converts  were  afterwards  banished  over  and  over 
again,    and  stripped  of  their  property. 

It  is  not  likely  that  Penn  made  many  such  con- 
verts on  his  journey,  and  his  time  was  probably 
largely  passed  in  investigating  the  religious  con- 
ditions of  the  people  in  his  liberal  way,  a  study 
which  had  always  strongly  attracted  him  ;  but  ap- 
parently he  did  not  find  much  that  was  pleasing  to 
him. 

On  his  return  to  England,  in  the  autumn  of  1771, 
there  seems  to  have  been  a  pause  in  the  aggressive 
activity  which  had  been  his  characteristic  before  his 
journey  to  Holland  ;  and  from  a  letter  which  his 
most  recent  biographer.  Dr.  Stoughton,  has  un- 
earthed in  the  Report  of  the  Historical  Manuscripts 
Commission,  it  is  probable  that  he  was  looking  about 
for  a  permanent  residence,  with  a  view  of  marrying 
Guli  Springett,  a  very  pretty  Quaker  maiden  who 
had  captured  his  fancy.  In  spite  of  the  ferocious 
religious  controversy,  the  preaching,  the  jury  trials, 
and  the  imprisonments,  there  had  been  a  romance, 
a  touch  of  human  tenderness  amidst  the  hardness  of 
conflict  and  the  dry  spirituality  of  religion.  It  was 
time  ;  for  he  was  twenty-seven  years  old. 

Guli,  or  Gulielma  Maria  Springett,  as  she  would 
163 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

perhaps  prefer  to  be  called  by  a  writer  of  the  world's 
people,  was  the  daughter  of  a  very  gallant  young 
Puritan  officer,  who  at  the  age  of  only  twenty-three 
found  himself  on  his  death-bed  at  the  siege  of 
Bamber.  His  young  wife  was  hastening  to  him 
through  difficulties  and  perils  ;  and  the  story  of  her 
devotion  and  his  tender  farewell,  as  described  in 
"The  Penns  and  the  Penningtons,"  is  doubly  beauti- 
ful because  it  is  a  relief  to  find  that  there  was  at  that 
time  anything  in  England  besides  hard  intolerance, 
devilish  cruelty,  and  ribald  conversation. 

Guli  was  born  a  few  weeks  after  her  father  thus 
died.  Her  mother  soon,  like  many  others,  became 
very  unsettled  in  religion,  and  could  endure  neither 
the  formal  prayers  of  the  Church  of  England  nor 
the  whining  cant  of  the  Puritans.  While  in  this  state 
of  mind  she  met  with  Isaac  Pennington,  whom  she 
found  to  be  also  a  Seeker  who  could  find  nothing  in 
all  the  religions  of  the  time  but  deceit  They  were 
married,  and  shortly  discovered  that  the  Quaker 
faith  was  what  they  sought ;  and  Guli  also  became  a 
Quaker. 

They  were  people  of  means.  Pennington's  father 
had  been  a  Puritan  alderman  in  the  civil  wars,  and 
one  of  the  court  for  the  trial  of  Charles  I.  They 
lived  contentedly  at  Chalfont  in  Buckinghamshire 
until  they  suddenly  became  one  of  those  families 
whose  ruin  Penn  said  was  impoverishing  and  de- 
populating England.  Pennington  was  thrown  into 
prison  for  his  opinions,  and  his  wife  and  Guli  had 
to  wander  about  as  best  they  could  until  he  was  re- 
leased. 

164 


REST  AND  A   SWEETHEART 

It  was  after  their  sufferings  had  begun  that  Penn 
first  knew  them.  |teSn  ^Iwood,  Milton's  friend, 
lived  with  them,  and  he  has  left  us  a  quaint  and 
serious  description  of  Guli  as  "  in  all  respects  a  very- 
desirable  woman,  whether  regard  was  had  to  her  out- 
ward person,  which  wanted  nothing  to  render  her 
completely  comely,  or  to  the  endowments  of  her 
mind,  which  were  every  way  extraordinary."  A  fair 
fortune  would  go  with  her,  an  accompaniment  which 
lovers  do  not  usually  refuse.  She  had,  indeed,  many 
suitors  of  all  ranks  and  conditions ;  but,  as  the  ex- 
cellent Ellwood  tells  us,  she  bore  herself  "with  so 
much  evenness  of  temper,  such  courteous  freedom, 
guarded  with  the  strictest  modesty,  that  none  were 
unduly  encouraged,  nor  could  any  complain  of 
offence."  A  very  tantalizing  young  woman  she  cer- 
tainly was,  and  it  seems  that  Ellwood  himself  was  a 
little  touched. 

Being  the  child  of  parents  who  could  love  with 
devotion,  Guli  herself  was  no  doubt  a  strenuous 
heroic  little  soul.  Penn  could  attract  her,  for  she 
could  see  in  him  a  Quaker  hero  who  feared  not  the 
face  of  man. 

Unfortunately  the  children  she  bore  were  not 
what  we  should  expect  from  either  Penn  or  her. 
Heredity  often  plays  queer  tricks  just  at  the  time 
when  you  look  for  a  sure  result.  Penn's  heirs  who 
became  the  owners  of  the  great  commonwealth  of 
Pennsylvania  were  the  children  of  his  second  wife,  a 
less  lovely  woman  than  Guli ;  and  to  this  day  there 
are  Pennsylvanians  who  regret  that  they  could  not 
be  ruled  in  colonial  times  by  GuH's  sons. 

165 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

But  all  that  came  afterwards.  Let  us  be  content 
that  now  in  the  spring  of  1672  Penn  and  Guli  were 
^  married  and  settled  down  at  Rickmansworth  in 
Hertfordshire,  far  from  the  dirt  and  turmoil  of  Lon- 
don, with  its  terrible  Tower  and  foul  Newgate.  They 
were  rich  and  could  live  at  ease,  and  they  seem  to 
have  been  very  happy  lovers  as  long  as  Guli  lived. 

The  terrors  of  persecution  had  for  a  time  passed 
away.  Charles  II.  had  issued  a  sort  of  document 
always  detested  by  the  sturdy  Anglo-Saxons  even 
when  it  relieved  them  from  suffering.  He  called  it 
a  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  and  in  it  he  arrogantiy 
announced  that  by  virtue  of  his  supreme  authority 
he  dispensed  with,  or,  in  plain  English,  abrogated  and 
annulled,  for  the  time  being,  all  the  penal  laws  against 
Quakers,  Presbyterians,  Romanists,  and  other  dis- 
senters from  the  Church  of  England. 

Although  he  outwardly  conformed  to  the  Church 
of  England,  Charles  was  at  heart  and  in  secret  a  Ro- 
manist, and  his  brother,  the  Duke  of  York,  was  now 
openly  one.  Charles  had,  two  years  before,  signed 
a  secret  treaty  with  Louis  XIV.  of  France,  by  which 
he  agreed  to  make  public  his  profession  of  the  Roman 
faith,  to  assist  Louis  in  destroying  the  power  of  Hol- 
land, and  to  support  the  claims  of  the  House  of 
Bourbon  to  the  Spanish  throne.  In  return  for  this 
Louis  had  agreed  to  supply  Charles  with  money  and 
to  help  him  with  an  army  to  suppress  any  insurrec- 
tion that  might  arise  among  his  subjects.  In  other 
words,  Charles,  like  his  predecessors,  wished  to  make 
himself  independent  of  Parliament  He  wished,  if 
possible,  to  govern  without  Parliament,  and  this  base 

166 


REST  AND  A  SWEETHEART 

treaty  with  France  was  to  help  him  to  attain  that 
end. 

The  Declaration  of  Indulgence  was  also  calcu- 
lated for  the  same  end.  It,  of  course,  relieved  the 
Roman  Catholics  as  well  as  the  Quakers  and  Puri- 
tans from  the  penal  laws,  and  thus  assisted  the  king's 
secret  Catholic  friends  and  gratified  the  Catholic 
king  of  France.  But  it  performed  also  the  more  im- 
portant function  of  creating  a  precedent  for  ruling 
without  Parliament.  It  relieved  the  people  from 
very  oppressive  laws  ;  and  they  could  hardly  refuse 
to  take  the  benefit  of  it ;  and  that  put  them  at  once 
in  the  position  of  assenting  to  the  king's  power  to 
abrogate  and  annul  laws  as  he  pleased.  In  a  few 
years  this  became  a  very  momentous  question  and 
one  with  which  Penn  was  closely  concerned. 

But  at  present,  while  he  was  enjoying  his  first  year 
of  married  happiness,  he  had  nothing  to  say  about 
the  Declaration  of  Indulgence.  He  was  probably 
glad  enough  to  see  the  hapless  Quakers  come  troop- 
ing out  of  the  dismal  prisons.  Over  four  hundred 
of  them  came  out  into  the  light  of  day  and  were 
restored  to  their  families. 

Most  of  the  spring  of  the  year  1672  Penn  seems 
to  have  spent  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  honeymoon. 
In  the  summer  he  again  resumed  his  preacher's  life, 
— that  is  to  say,  the  life  of  a  Quaker  preacher,  who 
serves  without  pay,  is  under  no  orders  or  compul- 
sion, and  may  have  some  other  occupation  that  re- 
quires most  of  his  time.  During  his  preaching  of 
this  summer  he  travelled  through  the  counties  of 
Kent,  Sussex,  and  Surrey,  working  hard  ;  for  within 

167 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

three  weeks  he  and  his  companion  are  said  to  have 
attended  twenty-one  meetings,  and  were  much  grati- 
fied at  the  increasing  numbers  and  earnestness  of 
their  people. 

The  traditions  of  Penn  which  Clarkson  collected 
among  the  Quakers  in  England  describe  him  as  a 
very  hard-working  minister.  He  worked  hard,  in 
fact,  at  all  his  undertakings.  Though  a  learned  man, 
he  preached,  it  is  said,  in  very  simple  language,  easy 
to  be  understood.  He  was  not  eloquent,  because 
under  the  peculiar  restrictions  against  vanity  and 
excitement  which  the  Quakers  place  on  preaching, 
as  on  all  their  actions,  eloquence  in  the  usual  mean- 
ing of  the  word  is  unknown  among  them. 

**  He  was  of  such  humility  that  he  used  generally  to  sit  at  the 
lowest  end  of  the  space  allotted  to  ministers,  always  taking  care  to 
place  above  himself  poor  ministers,  and  those  who  appeared  to  him 
to  be  peculiarly  gifted.  He  was  also  no  less  remarkable  for  en- 
couraging those  who  were  young  in  the  ministry.  Thomas  Story, 
among  many  others,  witnessed  this.  *  I  had  no  courage,'  says  he, 
'of  my  own  to  appear  in  public  among  them  (the  ministers).  I 
thought,  however  (on  seeing  Atkinson's  ministry  acceptable),  that  I 
might  also  probably  go  through  the  meetings  without  offence,  which 
was  the  full  amount  of  my  expectation  or  desire  there ;  and  that 
which  added  much  to  my  encouragement  was  the  fatherly  care  and 
behaviour  of  the  ministers  in  general,  but  especially  of  that  great 
minister  of  the  Gospel,  and  faithful  servant  of  Christ,  William  Penn, 
who  abounded  in  wisdom,  discretion,  prudence,  love,  and  tender- 
ness of  affection,  with  all  sincerity,  above  most  in  this  generation ; 
and,  indeed,  I  never  knew  his  equal.'  "  (Clarkson's  Penn,  vol.  ii. 
p.  271.) 

These  same  traditions  describe  him  as  very  neat 
though  plain  in  his  dress.  He  usually  walked  with 
a  cane,  and  in  later  life,  when  dictating  to  an  amanu- 
ensis, as  was  frequently  his  practice,  he  would  take 

168 


REST  AND  A   SWEETHEART 

the  cane  in  his  hand,  and,  walking  up  and  down  the 
room,  would  mark  by  striking  it  against  the  floor 
the  emphasis  on  points  which  he  wished  particularly 
to  be  noticed. 

Everything,  now  that  he  was  happily  married,  was 
peaceful.  His  days  of  imprisonment  seemed  to  be 
ended.  He  had  served  through  them  as  an  appren- 
ticeship to  his  calling  ;  he  had  borne  himself  in  them 
in  a  way  which  gave  him  a  standing  and  influence  ; 
and  he  was  now  in  a  position  to  accomplish  some 
really  valuable  results.  In  the  following  year,  1673, 
he  and  his  wife  travelled  in  the  western  part  of  Eng- 
land, and  at  Bristol  welcomed  George  Fox  on  his 
return  from  America.  It  must  have  been  a  delight- 
ful meeting  for  the  accomplished,  learned  Penn  and 
his  pretty  wife.  Fox  was  so  unlike  them  in  his  edu- 
cation and  associations,  and  yet  so  full  of  force,  intel- 
ligence, and  fire,  that  he  must  have  been  perpetually 
interesting.  In  his  rugged,  eloquent  way  he  was  full 
of  the  enthusiasm  of  his  travels,  the  adventures  and 
perils  of  the  wilderness,  the  strange  things  he  had 
seen,  the  zeal  and  steadfastness  of  the  American 
Quakers,  and  the  great  increase  and  strengthening 
he  now  found  among  those  in  England.  He  and 
the  Penns  attended  the  meetings  at  Bristol  and  its 
neighborhood,  and  Fox  describes  these  meetings  as 
"glorious  and  powerful." 

The  Quakers  were,  indeed,  at  this  time  reaping 
large  rewards  for  their  courageous  and  steady  endur- 
ance through  many  years.  In  our  time  the  religion 
that  draws  numbers  to  itself  most  effectually  is  apt 
to  be  the  one  that  promises  a  little  social  eminence, 

169 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

that  seems  to  be  in  the  line  of  fashion  and  good 
society.  But  the  Quaker  faith  was  becoming  popular 
*  because  it  seemed  to  arm  its  followers  with  fortitude. 
If  it  could  give  such  contentment  and  satisfaction  in 
the  midst  of  suffering,  it  must,  men  thought,  be  true. 

For  this  reason  religious  people  in  those  days  often 
courted  and  sought  suffering,  imprisonment,  and  even 
death  in  a  way  now  difficult  to  understand.  They 
were  often  accused,  especially  the  Quakers,  of  show- 
ing too  much  readiness  and  eagerness  to  suffer  ;  cold, 
philosophical  minds  would  say  that,  being  unduly 
heated  and  aroused,  they  found  a  morbid  satisfac- 
tion in  suffering  which  won  for  them  the  applause 
of  the  world  and  advanced  the  cause  of  their  sect 

So  many,  we  are  told,  from  the  Presbyterians  and 
other  Puritans  began  to  turn  towards  the  Quaker 
belief  that  the  ministers  of  those  sects  bestirred  them- 
selves to  call  back  their  wandering  sheep  and  to 
keep  others  from  straying.  They  wrote  pamphlets  ; 
and  the  cleverest  of  them  was  called  "A  Dialogue 
between  a  Christian  and  a  Quaker,"  in  which  it  was 
assumed  that  the  Quaker  was  not  a  Christian  at  all, 
and  he  was  made  to  maintain  very  ridiculous  prin- 
ciples, which  were  easily  confuted. 

The  life  of  Penn  prefixed  to  the  old  edition  of  his 
works  calls  this  pamphlet  a  forgery,  because  it  was 
put  forth  as  a  real  discourse  which  actually  happened, 
and  many  people  believed  it  to  be  real.  Its  author 
was  a  Baptist  minister,  Thomas  Hicks,  and  Penn, 
to  counteract  his  influence,  wrote  "The  Christian 
Quaker,"  a  very  dull  performance  as  it  seems  now, 
but  possibly  of  value  in  its  time.     Hicks,  at  any  rate, 

170 


REST  AND  A  SWEETHEART 

continued  his  attacks,  and  brought  out  a  second  part 
of  his  Dialogue,  and  then  a  third  part,  Penn  trying 
to  keep  pace  with  him  by  issuing  **  Reason  against 
Railing"  and  "The  Counterfeit  Christian  Detected." 

Hicks  must  have  been  getting  rather  the  better  of 
Penn,  for  the  Quakers  called  on  Hicks's  congregation 
for  a  public  debate  and  a  chance  to  clear  themselves. 
The  congregation  got  the  advantage  by  jockeyship, 
for  they  forced  on  the  meeting  at  a  time  when  Penn 
and  Whitehead  could  not  be  present,  and  the  vote 
was  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  Hicks. 

Penn  and  Whitehead  protested  and  demanded  an- 
other meeting,  which  was  finally  obtained,  and  is  said 
to  have  been  attended  by  six  thousand  people.  This 
number  seems  very  large,  and  may  be  an  exaggera- 
tion ;  but  we  can  readily  believe  that  the  attendance 
was  large,  for  in  the  tumultuous  state  of  religious 
opinion  at  that  time  there  was  an  intense  desire  to 
hear  these  scholastic  and  metaphysical  debates. 

The  principal  Quaker  leaders  and  the  principal 
Baptist  leaders  were  present,  and  there  was  one 
of  those  extraordinary  religious  scrimmages  which 
could  happen  only  among  the  bluff  bull-dog  English 
of  that  period.  They  debated  and  shouted  at  one 
another  all  day,  running  off  into  strange  meta- 
physical distinctions  of  the  nature  of  Christ,  whether 
his  manhood  should  be  called  a  part  of  him  or  a 
member  of*  him,  of  no  interest  whatever  to  modern 
minds,  but  apparently  as  fascinating  to  those  people 
as  a  theatre  or  a  bull-baiting.  No  decision  was 
reached,  but  they  enjoyed  a  good  fight ;  both  sides 
felt  better,  and  had  no  more  to  say  to  one  another. 

171 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

Penn,  however,  had  plenty  of  other  controversies 
on  his  hands,  for,  as  that  old  biography  prefixed  to 
his  works  says  of  him,  he  '*  never  turned  his  back 
in  the  day  of  battle."  The  Quakers  of  those  days 
loved  a  wordy  war  as  much  as  anybody  ;  and  though 
opposed  to  fighting  with  the  fleshy  arm,  never  hesi- 
tated to  describe  their  argumentative  struggles  in  the 
metaphores  of  warfare. 

Penn  had  to  answer  some  author  who  wrote  "  The 
Spirit  of  the  Quakers  Tried  ;**  he  had  to  attend  tto 
the  case  of  a  pair  of  pretenders,  Reeve  and  Muggle- 
ton,  who  with  their  "fond  imaginations"  drew  away 
much  people  after  them ;  he  had  to  down  John 
Faldo,  who  wrote  a  ''Curb  to  W.  Penn's  Confi- 
dence ;"  and  Harry  Hallywell  had  to  be  looked  after 
because  he  wrote  "An  Account  of  Familism  as  it 
is  Revised  and  Propagated  by  the  Quakers."  But 
Faldo  was  soon  on  his  feet  again,  and  procured 
the  signatures  and  approval  of  "  one-and-twenty 
learned  divines"  to  his  book  "Quakerism  no 
Christianity,"  and  Samuel  Grevil  assailed  the  in- 
ward light,  and  John  Perrot,  who  had  attained  some 
distinction  among  the  Quakers,  turned  renegade  and 
attacked  his  own  people  in  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Hat" 
and  in  "Tyranny  and  Hypocrisy  Detected."  These 
things  and  long  letters  of  rebuke  to  magistrates  and 
of  encouragement  to  the  faithful  in  the  Netherlands 
and  in  Maryland  kept  Penn  busy  enough  for  two 
years  while  he  lived  in  his  pleasant  country  home 
at  Rickmansworth,  and  learned  what  a  charming 
woman  his  young  wife  was. 


17a 


XII 

PERSECUTION,    OATHS,    AND   CONTROVERSY 

The  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  put  forth  by 
Charles  II.,  proved  to  be  a  very  short-lived  measure. 
There  was  so  much  opposition  to  it  in  Parliament 
that  the  king  revoked  it  within  a  year  after  it  was 
granted.  The  mill  of  persecution  began  to  grind 
again.  The  machinery  of  the  courts,  the  informers, 
the  magistrates,  the  constables,  and  the  writ-servers 
started  once  more  on  their  dismal  routine,  and 
Penn  was  called  from  his  pamphlet-writing  and 
peaceful  preaching  journeys  to  take  again  an  active 
part  in  trying  to  protect  his  people. 

The  constables  broke  up  a  meeting  at  which  he 
was  preaching,  and  we  find  him  writing  a  letter  of 
remonstrance  to  the  magistrates,  and  repeating  his 
old  arguments  for  religious  liberty.  "  Either  give  us 
a  better  faith,"  he  says,  **or  leave  us  with  the  one 
we  have." 

George  Fox  had  been  one  of  the  first  to  suffer 
almost  immediately  after  his  return  from  America. 
They  had  caught  hinf  in  the  trap  in  which  they 
caught  so  many.  They  offered  him  the  oath  of 
allegiance,  and  when  he  refused  it  because  he  could 
take  no  oaths  of  any  kind,  they  imprisoned  him  with- 
out trial  as  a  seditious  and  dangerous  person,  an 
enemy  to  the  government.     He  was  in  jail  for  over 

173 


#***«M^ 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

a  year  on  this  occasion,  suffering  severely  at  times 
from  illness,  with  his  wife  rushing  about  the  country 
to  procure  influence  for  his  release  and  returning  to 
the  prison  to  nurse  him.  The  king  offered  him  a 
pardon  ;  but  the  Quakers  were  always  obliged  to 
refuse  pardons,  because  their  acceptance  would  imply 
that  they  admitted  that  they  had  done  wrong ;  and, 
indeed,  the  pardons  were  usually  intended  to  force 
such  an  admission. 

Penn  and  the  leading  Quakers  exerted  themselves 
to  obtain  Fox's  release,  and  Penn  went  to  court,  where 
he  had  not  been  for  five  years.  He  appealed  to  his 
old  friend  and  his  father's  friend,  the  Duke  of  York, 
and  the  interview  is  significant  because  of  the  duke's 
rather  fulsome  language  in  favor  of  liberty  of  con- 
science and  Penn's  relations  with  him  on  this  subject 
in  after  years. 

"  The  time  being  fixt,  we  found  that  gentleman  as  was  agreed, 
and  went  with  him  to  the  Duke's  palace,  where  he  endeavored  our 
admission  by  the  means  of  the  Duchess'  Secretary ;  but  the  house 
being  very  full  of  people  and  the  Duke  of  business,  the  said  Secre- 
tary could  neither  procure  our  nor  his  own  admission  ;  but  Colonel 
Aston,  of  the  bed-chamber,  then  in  waiting,  and  my  old  acquaint- 
ance and  friend  (yet  I  had  not  seen  him  in  some  years  before) 
looking  hard  at  me,  thinking  he  should  know  me,  asked  me  in  the 
drawing-room,  first  my  name  and  then  my  business,  and  upon  under- 
standing both,  he  presently  gave  us  the  favor  we  waited  for,  of  speak- 
ing with  the  Duke,  who  came  immediately  out  of  his  closet  to  us. 

"  After  something  I  said  as  an  introduction  to  the  business,  I  de- 
livered him  our  request.  He  perused  it,  and  then  told  us  That  he 
was  against  all  persecution  for  the  sake  of  religion.  That  it  was  true 
he  had  in  his  younger  time  been  warm,  especially  when  he  thought 
people  made  it  a  pretence  to  disturb  government,  but  that  he  had 
seen  and  considered  things  better,  and  he  was  for  doing  to  others  as 
he  would  hare  others  do  unto  him  ;  and  he  thought  it  would  be 
happy  for  the  world  if  all  were  of  that  mind  ;  for  he  was  sure,  he 

174 


PERSECUTION,  OATHS,  AND   CONTROVERSY 

said,  *  that  no  man  was  willing  to  be  persecuted  himself  for  his  own 
conscience.*  He  added  that  he  looked  upon  us  as  a  quiet  indus- 
trious people,  and  though  he  was  not  of  our  judgment,  yet  he  liked 
our  good  lives,  with  much  more  to  the  same  purpose,  promising  he 
would  speak  to  his  brother,  and  doubted  not  but  that  the  king's 
counsel  would  have  orders  in  our  friend's  favor. 

"  I  and  my  companion  spoke  as  occasion  offered,  to  recommend 
both  our  business  and  our  character,  but  the  less  because  he  pre- 
vented us  in  the  manner  I  have  expressed. 

"  When  he  had  done  upon  this  affair,  he  was  pleased  to  take  a  very 
particular  notice  of  me,  both  for  the  relation  my  father  had  had  to 
his  service  in  the  navy,  and  the  care  he  had  promised  him  to  show 
in  my  regard  upon  all  occasions. 

"  That  he  wondered  I  had  not  been  with  him,  and  that  whenever 
I  had  any  business  thither,  he  would  order  that  I  should  have  access ; 
after  which  he  withdrew  and  we  returned. 

"  This  was  my  first  visit  to  the  court  after  five  years'  retirement ; 
and  this  the  success  of  it,  and  the  first  time  I  had  spoken  with  him 
since  '65." 

Penn  believed  that  this  Roman  Catholic  duke  was 
entirely  sincere  in  his  professions  about  liberty. 
Afterwards,  when  the  duke  became  king,  as  James  II., 
Penn  retained  the  same  confidence.  He  could  never 
forget  the  many  kindnesses  the  duke  had  shown  him, 
and  gratitude  it  seems  could  easily  lead  Penn  astray. 
In  continuing  his  account  of  the  interview,  he  says, 
"That  it  should  be  grateful  to  me  was  no  wonder 
and  perhaps,  that  with  some  was  the  beginning  of 
my  faults  at  court" 

The  duke,  however,  in  spite  of  his  wonderful  pro- 
fessions, seems  to  have  done  nothing  for  Fox,  who 
by  the  exertions  of  Penn  and  others  was  finally  dis- 
charged on  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Penn  wrote  his  "  Trea- 
tise of  Oaths."     It  was  an  important  little  book  for    V^^ 
his  sect,  because  their  objection  to  oaths  was  bring- 

175 


'> 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

ing  them  into  much  difficulty  and  imprisonment. 
The  book  was  carefully  prepared  in  Penn's  most 
learned  manner,  and  was  in  effect  issued  by  the 
Quakers  as  a  body ;  for  twelve  of  their  principal 
men  signed  the  preface,  which  was  addressed  "  To 
the  King  and  Great  Council  of  England  assembled 
in  Parliament" 

The  argument  would  not  now  carry  much  weight ; 
but  as  minds  were  then  constituted  it  was  not  with- 
out influence.  His  strongest  point  was  perhaps  the 
passage  in  the  New  Testament  in  which  the  Saviour 
says,  "  But  I  say  unto  you,  Swear  not  at  all."  He  goes 
on  to  argue  that  it  is  presumptuous  and  irreverent  to 
summon  God  as  a  witness  on  every  occasion  ;  that 
it  is  inconsistent  with  Christianity,  which  extirpates 
in  man  the  perfidiousness  which  first  led  to  oaths  ; 
that  it  is  no  safeguard  against  perjury,  since  oaths 
have  become  so  common  that  they  have  lost  any 
awe-inspiring  influence  they  may  have  had  ;  that  the 
form  of  oath  is  a  superstitious  ceremony  of  kissing  a 
book. 

"The  use  of  So  help  me  God,  we  find  from  the  law  of  the 
Almains,  of  King  Clotharius;  the  laying  on  of  the  three  fingers 
above  the  Book  is  to  signify  the  Trinity ;  the  thumb  and  the  little 
finger  under  the  Book  are  to  signify  the  damnation  of  body  and 
soul,  if  they  forswear." 

The  most  interesting  part  of  the  treatise  is  the 
learning  it  displays.  Beginning  with  the  Persians 
and  Scythians,  he  goes  on  quoting  scores  of  writers, 
Greek  and  Roman,  fathers  of  the  church,  in  every 
age  of  history,  and  succeeds  most  effectually  in 
showing  that  a  large  number  of  the  great  and  good 

176 


PERSECUTION,  OATHS,  AND   CONTROVERSY 

men  of  the  past,  especially  among  the  early  Christians, 
had  the  same  objections  to  oath-taking  as  the  Qua- 
kers. A  few  quotations  taken  at  random  will  show 
his  method. 

"  Xenocrates  was  so  renowned  at  Athens  for  his  virtuous  life  and 
great  integrity  that,  being  called  to  give  his  evidence  by  oath,  all  the 
judges  stood  up  and  forbade  the  tender,  because  they  would  not 
have  it  thought  that  truth  depended  more  upon  an  oath  than  the 
word  of  an  honest  man." 

"  Menander,  the  Greek  poet,  saith,  *  Flee  an  oath  though  thou 
shouldst  swear  justly.'  " 

**  Cherillus  saith,  oaths  bring  not  credit  to  the  man,  but  the  man 
must  bring  credit  to  the  oaths.  What  serve  they  for  them  ?  To  de- 
ceive ?  It  seems  by  this  that  credit  is  better  than  an  oath  ;  for  it  is 
credit  that  is  security,  not  the  oath." 

"  Epictetus,  a  famous  and  grave  Stoic,  counselled  to  refuse  an  oath 
altogether." 

"  Quintilian  saith  that  in  time  past  it  was  a  kind  of  infamy  for 
grave  and  approved  men  to  swear." 

Ponderous  oaths,  these  ancient  sages  •«  reasoned, 
were  unnecessary,  because  in  the  end  you  judged 
of  the  truth  by  comparison  of  circumstances  and 
likelihood.  The  Quakers  were  unable  to  abolish 
oaths  ;  but  they  succeeded  in  greatly  modifying  their 
usuage.  As  time  went  on  statutes  were  passed 
allowing  Quakers,  or  any  one  who  wished  it,  to  give 
his  simple  affirmation  instead  of  an  oath.  These 
statutes  prevail  now  in  most  English-speaking  coun- 
tries, and  thousands  who  are  not  Quakers  avail  them- 
selves of  the  privilege  either  because,  like  the 
ancient  sages  and  fathers,  they  think  an  oath  absurd, 
or  because  they  wish  to  avoid  kissing  a  dirt)*^,  court- 
room copy  of  the  Bible. 

As  a  collection  of  all  the  ancient  wisdom  on  this 
177 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

question,  and  as  contributing,  no  doubt,  in  shaping 
human  conduct,  this  treatise  by  Penn  is  one  of  the 
*     most  interesting  of  his  writings. 

Soon  after  he  attempted  another  great  stroke  for 
the  Quakers  and  for  the  British  public  in  •'  England's 
Present  Interest  considered."  The  present  state  of 
England  was,  he  said,  one  of  confusion.  It  would 
be  hard  to  find  anotlier  kingdom  of  the  world  so 
divided  within  itself  on  questions  of  religion.  The 
government  had  tried  to  force  a  uniform  belief,  and 
with  what  result? 

"  The  consequence,  whether  you  intended  it  or  no,  through  the  bar- 
barous practices  of  those  that  have  had  their  execution,  hath  been 
the  spoiling  of  several  thousands  of  the  free  born  people  of  this  king- 
dom, of  their  unforfeited  rights.  Persons  have  been  flung  into  gaols, 
gates  and  trunks  broken  open,  goods  distrained  till  a  stool  hath  not 
been  left  to  sit  down  on ;  flocks  of  cattle  driven,  whole  barns  full  of 
corn  seized,  threshed,  and  carried  away ;  parents  left  without  their 
children,  children  without  their  parents,  both  without  subsistence.  .  .  . 

**  The  widow's  mite  hath  not  escaped  their  hands ;  ^qy  ^^Yfi  Jft^^ 

'^  hercan  the  forfeiture  of  her  conscience;  not  leaving  her  a  bed  to  lie 

on  nor  a  blankef  to  "cover  her.  .  .  .  The  poor  helpless  orphan's  milk 

boiling  over  the  fire  has  been  flung  to  the  dogs,  and  the  skillet  made 

part  of  their  prize." 

The  only  remedy  for  this  state  of  things  is,  he  says, 
a  return  to  the  original  Anglo-Saxon  liberty  by  which 
no  man  could  be  disturbed  in  the  possession  of  his 
property,  every  man  had  a  voice  and  vote  in  the 
making  of  laws,  and  every  man  accused  of  an  offence 
had  a  right  to  a  fair  trial  by  jury.  He  goes  into  the 
details  of  this  liberty.  Magna  Charta,  the  old  statutes, 
and  the  Anglo-Saxon  Wittangemote  or  free  assembly, 
in  the  same  way  as  since  his  day  we  have  had  it  re- 
peated again  and  again  in  histories  and  school-books. 

178 


PERSECUTION,  OATHS,  AND  CONTROVERSY 

Then  he  raises  his  old  subject  of  liberty  of  conscience, 
which  he  argues  out  anew  as  a  question  of  good 
policy,  to  give  ease  to  the  government  from  expense, 
and  relieve  it  of  its  deadly  religious  enemies,  stop 
the  swarm  of  paupers  and  beggars  that  were  every 
day  increasing  as  the  result  of  persecution,  and  en- 
courage trade  to  flourish  as  Holland's  trade  had 
flourished,  by  granting  freedom  to  religion. 

He  followed  up  his  argument  by  a  sort  of  peti- 
tion to  the  king  and  Parliament  called  "The  Con- 
tinued Cry  of  the  Oppressed,"  describing  the  fines 
and  imprisonments,  the  infamous  informers,  the 
rough  handling  by  constables,  men  and  women 
beaten,  carts,  ploughs,  and  crops  of  the  farmers 
seized,  and  other  sufferings  which  were  still  inflicted 
on  the  Quakers.  These  efforts  he  was  making  are 
dull  enough  to  read  about  nowadays ;  but  they 
must  be  mentioned  to  show  his  busy  life  and  his 
consuming  passion  to  advance  the  cause  of  liberty 
and  deliver  his  people  from  oppression. 

That  he  might  be  still  more  busy,  Richard  Baxter 
challenged  him  to  a  controversy.  Baxter  had  been 
in  the  country  round  Rickmansworth  and  found  it 
"  abounding  with  Quakers  because  Mr  W  Pen,  their 
captain,  dwelleth  there."  He  was  anxious,  he  said, 
to  save  these  poor  people  from  their  delusion  ;  so  in 
knight-errant  fashion  he  called  on  their  captain,  Penn, 
to  draw  and  defend.  From  ten  in  the  morning  till 
five  in  the  afternoon  they  fought  it  out  before  a 
great  crowd  of  hearers,  who  went  without  their  din- 
ners, so  intent  were  they  to  hear  the  hair-splitting 
that  would   now  be  scarcely   understood,  and  the 

179 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

rough  retorts  which  would  not  please  a  modem  re- 
ligious audience.  Nothing  was  settled  ;  each  one 
claimed  the  victory,  and  Penn  and  Baxter  continued 
the  controversy  by  correspondence,  and  it  was  still 
unsettled. 

Penn  seemed  willing  to  go  on  with  it  forever ; 
for  after  telling  Baxter  "  the  scurvy  of  the  mind  is 
thy  distemper,  and  I  fear  it  is  incurable,"  he  says 
he  has  great  kindness  for  him,  and  would  like  to 
give  him  a  room  in  his  house,  "  that  I  could  visit 
and  get  discourse  with  thee  in  much  tender  love.*' 

Penn  was  very  active  at  this  time,  and  seems  to 
have  written  many  pamphlets,  some  of  which  do  not 
appear  in  his  works.  Several  of  them  had  the 
queer  titles  of  the  time,  such  as  "  Naked  Truth 
Needs  no  Shift,"  which  was  an  answer  to  **  The 
Quaker's  Last  Shift  Found  Out" 


i8o 


XIII 

TRAVELS    IN    HOLLAND    AND    POLITICS   AT    HOME 

His  wife  having  inherited  a  house  and  lands  at 
Worminghurst,  in  Sussex,  Penn  left  his  home  at 
Rickmans worth,  and  moved  to  this  new  estate.  Soon 
afterwards,  in  company  with  George  Fox,  Robert 
Barclay,  and  some  other  leading  Quakers,  he  started 
on  a  missionary  journey  to  Holland  and  Ger- 
many. This  was  in  the  summer  of  the  year  1677, 
and  since  his  previous  journey,  six  years  before,  the 
Quaker  feeling  in  those  countries  had  been  increasing. 
The  Princess  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Frederick  V., 
and  the  Countess  of  Homes  had  become  conspicu- 
ously inclined  towards  the  faith  of  the  inward  light, 
and  many  people  were  in  that  seeking  state  of  mind, 
disgusted  with  all  forms  of  religion,  which  had  been 
so  fruitful  of  Quakers  in  England. 

So  Penn  and  his  companions  set  out  well  supplied 
with  Quaker  books  in  the  Dutch  and  German  lan- 
guages, and  Penn  kept  a  journal  of  their  travels  and 
success.  It  is  probable  that  this  journal  is  the  dryest 
and  dullest  that  ever  was  written.  Penn's  generali- 
ties became  more  colorless  than  ever,  and  when  he 
gives  details  they  are  uninteresting  ones.  His  de- 
scription of  meetings  and  conversions  are  always  in 
the  same  general  language  of  great  travail  of  spirit, 
precious  testimonies,   and    great   awakening.     The 

181 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

mystical  expressions  used  by  Quakers  are  at  any 
time  rather  meaningless  to  the  uninitiated,  and  the 
lapse  of  two  hundred  years  does  not  help  to  make 
them  more  intelligible. 

But  still,  by  great  labor  in  reading,  we  gather  how 
they  went  from  town  to  town  encouraging  the  few 
congenial  souls  they  found,  helping  them  to  organize 
meetings  like  those  in  England,  corresponding  with 
and  visiting  countesses,  princesses,  and  governors  of 
provinces,  and  Penn  had  not  forgotten  his  old  habit 
of  writing  a  letter  of  rebuke  to  any  ruler  who  had 
not  treated  the  Quakers  well. 

In  a  letter  to  the  King  of  Poland  he  pleads  for 
religious  liberty  and  reminds  him  of  a  saying  of  one 
of  his  ancestors,  Stephen,  King  of  Poland,  who  had 
said,  "  I  am  king  of  men,  not  of  consciences ;  a 
commander  of  bodies,  not  of  souls."  This  striking 
sentence  had  long  been  a  favorite  quotation  with 
those  who  sought  liberty,  and  Roger  Williams,  of 
Rhode  Island,  was  fond  of  using  it  in  his  controver- 
sies with  the  rulers  of  Massachusetts. 

They  passed  out  of  Holland  and,  entering  Ger- 
many, travelled  through  many  of  the  places  whence 
afterwards  so  many  German  Mennonites  and  similar 
sects  allied  to  the  Quakers  migrated  to  Pennsylvania, 
forming  that  large  body  of  people  still  known  in  our 
State  as  the  "Pennsylvania  Dutch."  Evidently  a 
great  change  had  taken  place  in  the  religious  condi- 
tion of  the  country  since  Penn's  visit  of  six  years 
before.  The  Germanic  mind  was  growing  more  and 
more  into  a  state  of  religious  ferment,  and  was  break- 
ing away  from  the  old  forms,  and  breaking  up  into 

182 


TRAVELS  IN  HOLLAND 

the  innumerable  sects  whose  history  in  Pennsylvania 
was  so  curious.*  The  people  were  becoming  Seekers, 
like  the  English,  and  Penn  and  his  companions  were 
eager  to  find  those  who  were  in  this  state  of  mind. 

**  We  had  a  good  time  with  him  ;  for  the  man  is  an  ancient  Seeker, 
opprest  with  the  cares  of  this  world.  .  .  .  We  set  out  towards  the 
city  of  Duysburg  of  the  Calvinist  way,  belonging  to  the  Elector  of 
Brandenburg,  in  and  near  to  which  we  had  been  informed  there  were 
a  retired  and  seeking  people."     (Works  of  Penn,  vol.  i.  p.  78.) 

In  another  passage  he  speaks  of  some  people  who, 
aroused  by  the  preaching  of  De  Labadie  "  against 
the  dead  and  formal  churches  of  the  world,"  had 
separated  themselves  and  lived  **  in  a  way  of  refined 
independency."  These  were,  in  effect,  also  Seekers, 
though  not  called  by  that  name.  Labadie  was  a 
Frenchman  and  a  famous  preacher.  He  had  been 
a  Jesuit,  and  after  becoming  a  Protestant  was  dis- 
satisfied with  the  Calvinism  he  found  at  Geneva.  So 
he  went  to  Holland  and  became  a  radical  in  religion. 
Penn  had  seen  him  on  his  previous  visit ;  but  by  no 
means  approved  of  him.  He  calls  him  airy  and 
unstable  and  a  mere  sect-maker.  Sect-making  for 
the  mere  glory  of  the  sect-maker  soon  became  com- 
mon enough,  especially  in  Germany. 

Two  of  Labadie's  followers,  Bankers  and  Sluyter, 
travelled  among  the  colonies  in  America  in  the  year 
1679,  visiting  the  land  that  Penn  was  afterwards  to 
call  Pennsylvania,  and  they  kept  a  most  interesting 
journal  which  is  now  largely  relied  upon  by  those 
who  wish  to  know  at  first  hand  the  manners  and 
condition  of  the  early  colonists. 

*  The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,  p.  94. 
183 


7 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

Before  returning  to  England  Penn  wrote  four 
tracts, — "ACall  to  Christendom,"  "A  Tender  Hesi- 
tation," "To  all  Professors  of  Christianity,"  and 
"  Tender  Counsel."  They  were  translated  into  Dutch 
and  German  by  Benjamin  Furly,  an  English  merchant 
in  Rotterdam,  of  whom  more  hereafter,  and  by 
him  they  were  published  and  circulated  among 
the  people  of  those  countries  who  were  of  a  sepa- 
rating and  seeking  turn  of  mind.* 

On  Penn's  return  to  England  after  this  summer 
missionary  tour  of  three  months,  he  found  that,  in 
spite  of  all  the  appeals  for  liberty  which  had  been 
made  by  himself  and  others,  the  condition  of  the 
Quakers  was,  if  anything,  worse  than  ever.  The 
people  had  become  so  thoroughly  alarmed  by  the 
king's  leaning  towards  the  Roman  Catholics  that  the 
magistrates  and  officials  echoed  this  feeling  by  en- 
forcing more  strictly  than  ever  the  laws  against  dis- 
senters of  all  kinds.  The  Puritans  avoided  the  se- 
verity of  these  laws  by  keeping  their  religion  to 
themselves,  exercising  what  the  Quakers  sneeringly 
called  '*  Christian  prudence."  But  the  Quakers, 
being  a  very  obstinate  folk,  made  few  attempts  to 
conceal  their  meetings  or  their  absence  from  the 
regular  worship  of  the  Church  of  England.  Evi- 
dence was  accordingly  easily  obtained  against  them, 
and  fines  and  imprisonments  were  again  sweeping 
away  property  and  families. 

A  pretence  of  giving  them  a  little  ease  was  made 
by  introducing  in   Parliament  a  bill  which  would 


*  Penna.  Mag.  Hist.,  vol.  xix.  pp.  283,  284. 
184 


TRAVELS  IN  HOLLAND 

render  the  laws  applicable  only  to  those  who  should 
refuse  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  and  supremacy, 
which  was,  in  effect,  an  oath  abjuring  popery  and 
denying  the  power  of  the  Pope  to  absolve  British 
subjects  from  their  allegiance  to  the  crown.  By  this 
means,  it  was  said,  the  laws  would  act  only  against 
the  Roman  Catholics,  and  other  dissenters  would  be 
free.  But  as  the  Quakers  could  not  take  an  oath  at 
all,  this  bill  would  put  them  in  a  worse  plight  than 
ever.  They  would  be  classed  with  the  Roman 
Catholics  and  Jesuits,  and  would  be  in  a  position  to 
have  it  said  that  they  refused  to  acknowledge  their 
allegiance  as  British  subjects. 

Penn,  as  the  representative  of  the  Quakers,  ap- 
pealed to  Parliament,  presented  petitions,  and  made 
arguments  before  a  committee  in  favor  of  a  slight 
amendment  by  which  Quakers  should  give  their 
word  instead  of  an  oath,  and  be  subject  to  the  same 
penalties  for  perjury  as  if  they  had  been  under  oath. 

The  old  charge  that  he  was  a  Jesuit  in  disguise 
was  evidently  rife  at  this  time,  for  a  large  part  of 
the  two  speeches  he  made  before  the  committee  is 
taken  up  in  protesting  against  this  accusation,  and 
in  declaring  that  he  and  all  the  Quakers  were  in  the 
truest  sense  of  the  word  Protestants,  not  by  any 
means  enemies  of  the  crown  and  government,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  anxious  to  support  government 
if  they  were  only  allowed  to  do  so  in  a  way  approved 
by  their  conscience. 

He  was  successful  before  the  House  of  Commons. 
They  accepted  his  suggestion  and  passed  the  bill 
with  a  clause  allowing  the  Quakers  to  affirm  in  place 

185 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

of  taking  an  oath  ;  but  before  the  bill  could  be 
passed  by  the  House  of  Lords,  Parliament  was 
dissolved.  It  seemed  impossible  for  the  Quakers  to 
have  any  good  luck,  and  in  the  summer  of  that 
year,  1678,  that  extraordinary  creature,  Titus  Oates, 
professed  to  have  discovered  the  popish  plot. 

The  British  are  a  courageous  people  ;  but  even  in 
recent  times  they  have  been  put  into  what  seems  to 
other  nations  a  ridiculous  panic  by  the  suggestion  of 
a  French  invasion,  and  in  earlier  periods  the  sugges- 
tion of  a  Jesuit  plot  would  create  among  them  still 
greater  excitement.  Oates,  having  an  insane  craving 
for  notoriety,  took  advantage  of  both  these  sources 
of  panic,  and  told  a  wonderful  tale  of  what  he  had 
learned  while  he  was  among  the  Jesuits.  The  Pope, 
he  said,  had  turned  over  the  government  of  England 
to  the  Jesuits,  who  had  already  issued  commissions 
appointing  Catholics  to  all  the  offices  of  state.  The 
present  British  statesmen  were  to  be  murdered. 
The  king  was  to  be  stabbed,  or  poisoned,  or  shot 
with  silver  bullets.  The  shipping  of  the  Thames 
was  to  be  set  on  fire,  and  at  a  given  signal  the  Eng- 
lish Catholics  were  to  murder  their  Protestant  neigh- 
bors. And,  to  make  sure  of  the  success  of  all  this 
devilish  work,  a  French  army  was  to  land  in  Ireland. 

Oates  was  a  disorderly  and  disgraced  clergyman 
of  the  Church  of  England.  He  had  turned  Roman 
Catholic,  or,  at  least,  had  made  professions  of  that 
faith,  and  had  lived  at  some  of  the  English  Jesuit 
colleges  on  the  continent.  He  had,  of  course,  heard 
there  all  sorts  of  loose  talk  about  the  best  means  of 
converting  England  ;  and  as  force  was  then  a  recog- 

186 


TRAVELS  IN  HOLLAND 

nized  means  of  conversion,  he  had,  no  doubt,  actually 
heard  individuals  suggest  some  of  the  things  he  re- 
ported. These  scraps  of  conversation  he  wove  into 
a  connected  tale  of  an  actual  organized  plot  which 
was  to  be  carried  out.  He  reminded  his  hearers 
that  London  had  once  been  burnt,  and  insinuated 
that  this  work  of  the  Jesuits  would  be  repeated. 

Circumstances  favored  his  story.  When  the  papers 
of  Edward  Coleman,  one  of  the  Catholics  he  accused, 
were  looked  for,  it  was  found  that  he  had  just  de- 
stroyed most  of  them,  and  that  those  which  remained 
spoke  of  the  great  expectations  in  which  Romanists 
might  indulge  from  the  present  situation  in  England. 
Soon  after,  the  magistrate  before  whom  Oates  had 
testified  against  Coleman  was  found  murdered  in  a 
field.  When  we  remember,  in  addition  to  this,  that 
the  English  people,  although  they  did  not  know  of 
Charles  H.'s  secret  agreement  with  the  King  of 
France,  strongly  suspected  it,  that  they  felt  sure  of 
his  leaning  towards  Romanism,  and  knew  that  his 
brother  the  Duke  of  York,  heir  to  the  throne,  had 
actually  turned  Romanist  and  married  a  Roman 
Catholic  woman ;  when  we  remember,  also,  that  they 
had  in  their  minds  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  which  was 
the  work  of  Catholics,  the  Catholic  conspiracies 
against  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  the  cruelties  of  the 
reign  of  their  Catholic  queen,  Bloody  Mary,  it  is  not 
hard  to  understand  how  they  readily  believed  the 
tale  of  Oates  and  were  roused  by  it  to  the  utmost 
pitch  of  fury. 

The  jails  soon  contained  more  papists  than  Qua- 
kers.     London  was  put  under  the  protection  of  the 

187 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

militia,  cannon  were  collected,  barricades  for  the 
streets  prepared,  every  good  Protestant  citizen  car- 
ried weapons  under  his  clothes,  and  guards  sat  day 
and  night  in  the  vaults  under  Parliament  to  save 
that  august  body  from  being  blown  into  the  air. 

This  strange  commotion  had  occurred  while  the 
amendment  suggested  by  Penn  allowing  Quakers  to 
affirm  instead  of  swear  was  pending  in  Parliament. 
But  Parliament  was  now  busy  excluding  Roman 
Catholic  lords  from  their  seats  in  the  upper  house, 
driving  the  Duke  of  York  from  his  seat  in  the  Privy 
Council,  and  impeaching  the  lord  treasurer  for  trea- 
son. In  the  hope  of  stopping  this  impeachment  of 
his  lord  treasurer,  which  might  disclose  his  secret 
treaty  with  the  King  of  France,  Charles  dissolved 
Parliament  in  January,  ife^9,  before  Penn's  amend- 
ment could  be  passed. 

The  slaughter  of  the  Catholics  suspected  of  the 
plot  now  began.  Oates  was  becoming  the  richest 
and  most  powerful  man  in  England.  The  informers 
who  had  been  earning  small  livings  by  bringing 
Quakers  and  Puritans  to  justice  recognized  in  him  a 
master  of  their  art  They  were  soon  discovering  all 
manner  of  popish  wickedness  :  armies  of  invasion 
preparing  abroad  and  secret  assassination  plotted  at 
home  ;  and  Oates,  to  remain  their  leader,  was  com- 
pelled to  add  new  wonders  to  his  original  tale. 

In  this  confusion  Penn  wrote  a  letter  of  advice  to 
the  Quakers  exhorting  them  to  abstain  from  a  worldly 
spirit  "  Fly  as  for  your  lives,"  he  says,  "  from  the 
snares  therein,  and  get  you  into  your  watch-tower, 
the  name  of  the  Lord."     He  wrote  a  book  on  the 

i88 


TRAVELS  IN   HOLLAND 

public  situation  which  passed  through  two  editions, 
and  was  called  **An  Address  to  Protestants  of  all 
Persuasions."  The  cause  of  the  troublous  times 
was,  he  says,  the  attempt  to  propagate  religion  by 
force.  The  papists  had  such  a  terrible  history  of 
cruelty  in  forcing  religion  that  now  the  country  was 
in  a  turmoil  of  fear  of  them.  There  never  would 
be  peace,  however,  until  the  Protestants  gave  up  the 
cruelty  of  persecution  which  they  were  imitating 
from  Rome. 

"  Revive,"  he  says,  "  the  noble  principle  of  liberty  of  conscience 
on  which  the  Reformation  rose ;  for  in  vain  do  we  hope  to  be  de- 
livered from  papists  until  we  deliver  ourselves  from  popery.  This 
coercion  upon  conscience  and  persecution  for  religion  are  that  part 
of  popery  which  is  most  justly  hated  and  feared.  And  if  we  either 
fear  or  hate  popery  for  its  cruelty,  shall  we  practise  the  cruelty  we 
fear  or  hate  it  for?" 

He  had  now  an  opportunity  to  argue  again  on  his 
favorite  subject  of  religious  liberty,  a  subject  which 
he  was  always  eager  to  press  on  public  attention. 
He  reasoned  on  this  occasion  not  very  brilliantly,  it 
must  be  confessed  ;  in  fact,  with  much  dulness  ex- 
cept here  and  there  a  striking  sentence.  In  one 
passage  he  comes  near  writing  a  good  aphorism,  but 
spoils  it  with  too  many  words  and  interjected  ideas. 
Freed  from  his  verbiage  it  would  be,  "  Zeal  without 
knowledge  is  superstition  ;  zeal  against  knowledge 
is  interest  or  faction ;  but  zeal  with  knowledge  is  re- 
ligion." 

The  first  part  of  his  book  is  taken  up  with  a  tirade 
against  the  wickedness  of  the  times  ;  drunkenness, 
whoredom,  luxury,  gambling,  cursing,  and  irrever- 

189 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

ence,  which  are  also,  he  thinks,  causes  of  England's 
troubles.  The  very  plain  speaking  he  indulges  him- 
self in  here  is  interesting  as  a  comment  on  the 
times.  After  reading  through  all  he  says  we  are 
left  with  an  impression  that  two  hundred  years  have 
not  added  much  in  the  way  of  excessive  luxuries. 
Penn  himself  lived  well  even  when  he  was  in  his 
wilderness  colony  of  Pennsylvania.  He  liked  hand- 
some furniture,  good  wines,  a  well-supplied  table, 
horses,  fruit-trees,  flower-gardens,  and  pleasure-boats. 
The  luxury  which  he  condemns  must  therefore 
have  been  a  luxury  far  in  excess  of  his  own.  He 
believed  in  good  cooking,  but  French  cookery,  he 
says,  was  ruining  England. 

•*  Natural  relish,"  he  says,  "  is  lost  in  the  crowd  of  the  cook's  in- 
gredients ;"  and  in  furnishing  houses  "  it  is  a  most  inexcusable  super- 
fluity to  bestow  an  estate  to  line  walls,  dress  cabinets,  embroider 
beds,  with  a  hundred  other  unprofitable  pieces  of  state,  such  as  massy 
plate,  rich  china,  costly  pictures,  sculpture,  fret  work,  inlayings,  and 
painted  windows." 

Such  complaints,  however,  have  been  made  in  all 
times.  The  golden  as  well  as  the  virtuous  age  is 
always  in  the  past  or  hoped  for  in  the  future.  The 
real  truth  about  such  matters  is  that  good  and  bad 
fashions  in  morals  are  perpetually  changing.  Dif- 
ferent periods  are  virtuous  in  some  things  and 
vicious  in  others.  The  peculiar  vicious  fashion  of 
Penn's  time  seems  to  have  been  wholesale  corrup- 
tion and  treachery  to  one  another  among  the  upper 
classes,  and  reckless  obscene  coarseness  in  speech 
and  manners,  indulged  in  by  women  as  well  as  by 
men. 

190 


TRAVELS   IN   HOLLAND 

It  is,  perhaps  tedious  to  mention  so  many  details 
of  Penn's  efforts  on  behalf  of  liberty ;  but  only  by 
these  details  can  his  character  be  known.  He  fol- 
lowed up  his  address  to  Protestants  by  a  petition  to 
William,  Prince  of  Orange,  the  famous  Hollander, 
who  within  a  decade  was  to  become  King  of  Eng- 
land and  accomplish  the  reforms  in  which  Penn  was 
wearing  out  his  life.  The  object  of  the  petition  was 
to  ask  relief  from  persecution  for  some  of  the  people 
Penn  had  recently  visited  at  Crevelt  on  the  Rhine ; 
and  he  renews  his  old  argument  of  the  ridiculous 
inconsistency  of  Protestants  protesting  against  papist 
persecutions,  when  Protestants  were  persecuting  Prot- 
estants. 

Penn  was  by  nature  a  public  man.  His  deep  in- 
terest in  religious  liberty  and  broad  questions  of 
public  policy,  his  liberal  education,  his  ability  as  a 
writer,  his  long  experience  in  public  speaking  and 
in  directing  the  interests  of  his  sect  in  stormy  po- 
litical times,  besides  the  associations  of  his  father, 
the  admiral,  naturally  turned  him  towards  politics. 
He  would  surely  have  taken  a  very  large  part  in 
state-craft  if  Quaker  principles  had  not  restrained 
him.  The  Quakers  abstained  almost  entirely  from 
political  life,  and  in  many  instances  even  from  voting, 
because  politics  were  disturbing  to  religious  contem- 
plation and  involved  taking  and  administering  oaths 
and  countenancing  war.  But  this  was,  it  seems, 
only  a  general  rule,  which  admitted  of  exceptions 
when  necessary. 

The  king's  dissolution  of  Parliament  compelled  a 
new  election,  and,  with  the  fears  of  the  popish  plot 

191 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

and  the  hostility  to  the  king  for  his  popish  leaning, 
the  contest  was  hot  and  exciting.  Questions  of  re- 
ligious liberty  and  questions  deeply  affecting  the 
Quakers  were  involved,  and  Penn  threw  himself  into 
the  contest  with  enthusiasm.  He  was  a  Whig,  of 
course,  and  he  had  become  a  friend  of  Algernon 
Sydney,  a  man  of  very  liberal  opinions,  who  was  the 
Whig  candidate  for  Guildford.  Sydney's  opinions, 
indeed,  were  so  extreme  that  he  was  considered  dan- 
gerous to  monarchy,  and  he  had  been  in  exile  on  the 
continent  for  many  years  ;  but  he  had  been  allowed 
to  return  for  a  time  to  settle  his  father's  estate.  Penn 
made  speeches  for  him,  and  in  the  midst  of  one  of 
these  an  attempt  was  made  to  arrest  him  as  a  Jesuit. 
But  his  most  important  effort  was  a  short  pamphlet 
called  "  England's  Great  Interest  in  the  Choice  of 
a  New  Parliament" 

From  this  pamphlet  we  learn  that  Penn  believed 
that  there  was  a  popish  plot  as  described  by  Oates  ; 
for  he  says  that  the  first  object  to  be  gained  by  this 
election  is  "  to  pursue  the  discovery  and  punishment 
of  the  plot"  In  another  passage  he  advises  the 
voters  to  choose  only  sincere  Protestants  ;  and  they 
can  know  false  Protestants,  he  says,  "  by  their  laugh- 
ing at  the  plot,  disgracing  the  evidence." 

That  there  was  an  intention  at  that  time  and  long 
afterwards  on  the  part  of  Roman  Catholics,  both  in 
England  and  on  the  continent,  to  capture  the  British 
government  and  force  Catholicism  on  England  ad- 
mits of  no  doubt  Protestants  were  fully  justified  in 
guarding  against  this  and  in  offsetting  the  Catholic 
tendency  of  their  king.      But  Oates's  evidence  went 

192 


*    £i 


al(;ern()N  sydnky 


TRAVELS  IN  HOLLAND 

farther  than  this  mere  intention,  and  professed  to  dis- 
close a  regularly  organized  plot,  to  be  accompanied 
by  wholesale  assassination,  and  this  is  now  believed 
to  have  been  a  mere  delusion.  But  there  were  thou- 
sands like  Penn  who  believed  in  it. 

There  is  nothing  else  in  his  pamphlet  which  calls 
for  particular  comment  He  repeats  many  of  his 
old  arguments  for  a  restoration  of  Anglo-Saxon 
liberty,  and  calls  for  impeachment  of  the  evil  coun- 
sellors who  were  misguiding  the  king.  We  must  be 
secured,  he  says,  from  popery  and  slavery,  and  Prot- 
estant dissenters  must  be  eased.  If  this  be  accom- 
plished the  king  should  be  rewarded  with  increased 
revenues.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  he  is  hot 
against  popery,  and  stanch  for  the  defence  of  Eng- 
lish Protestant  government 

Algernon  Sydney  was  not  elected.  He  received 
a  majority  of  the  votes,  but  was  not  returned  be- 
cause he  was  not  a  freeman  of  Guildford.  Penn  had 
not  at  this  time  much  luck  in  attaining  what  he 
wanted  in  politics.  His  political  party,  the  Whigs, 
secured,  however,  a  large  majority  in  Parliament 
This  did  not  suit  the  king,  so  he  immediately  dis- 
solved Parliament  again,  and  there  was  another  elec- 
tion. Algernon  Sydney  became  a  candidate  for 
Bamber,  in  Sussex,  was  again  earnestly  supported 
by  Penn,  and  again  defeated. 

By  his  efforts  to  assist  the  Whig  party  against 
popery  Penn  was  hoping  to  show  that  he  was  not  a 
Jesuit  and  that  the  Quakers  were  not  Jesuits.  But 
in  the  extremely  suspicious  state  of  people's  minds 
there  were  no  doubt  many  who  became  all  the 
13  193 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

more  suspicious  and  believed  his  zeal  for  the  Whigs 
was  only  a  cunning  cover  to  his  secret  Jesuitism. 

After  Sydney's  second  failure  to  be  elected  to 
Parliament  Penn  wrote  another  pamphlet  called 
**One  Project  for  the  Good  of  England,"  which  was 
intended  to  assist  the  Whigs  and  at  the  same  time 
put  the  Quakers  in  a  better  position.  He  argued 
that  Protestants  must  be  united  against  their  old 
enemy,  and  that  the  dissenters  and  the  Church  of 
England  must  drop  their  quarreb  and  present  a 
united  front  to  Rome.  In  the  church  of  Rome,  he 
said,  religion  meant  not  love  of  God  and  your  neigh- 
bor, but  civil  empire ;  and  to  seize  the  government 
of  England  was  the  prime  object  of  Roman  Catholics. 

Should  not  the  Church  of  England  then,  he  asks, 
stop  persecuting  us  dissenters  ?  Is  mere  conformity 
to  her  worship  dearer  to  her  than  the  general  cause 
of  Protestantism  and  the  safety  of  the  British  gov- 
ernment? Is  she  not  doing  what  Rome  desires  her 
to  do, — ^scattering,  impoverishing,  and  disuniting  the 
dissenters,  and  weakening  the  cause  of  Protestantism? 
Would  a  Churchman  refuse  the  help  of  a  Quaker  or 
Baptist  to  pull  him  out  of  a  ditch  ?  And  why  should 
he  deprive  himself  of  that  help  in  the  great  cause  of 
Protestantism  ? 

He  argues  again  on  his  old  subject  of  religious 
liberty  as  not  only  right  in  itself,  but  as  a  wise  policy 
which  will  unite  the  nation,  give  it  power  against 
Jesuit  plots,  and  also  commercial  supremacy. 

"  I  ask  if  more  custom  comes  not  to  the  king,  and  more  trade  to 
the  kingdom  by  encouraging  the  labor  and  traffic  of  an  Episcopalian, 
Presbyterian,  Independent,  Quaker,  and  Anabaptist  than  by  an  Epis- 

194 


TRAVELS   IN  HOLLAND 

copalian  only.  .  .  .  For  till  it  be  the  interest  of  the  farmer  to  destroy 
his  flock,  to  starve  the  horse  he  rides  and  the  cow  that  gives  him 
milk,  it  cannot  be  the  interest  of  England  to  let  a  great  part  of  her 
sober  and  useful  inhabitants  be  destroyed  about  things  that  concern 
another  world." 


In  conclusion,  he  says  the  most  important  safe- 
guard is  to  prevent  papists  passing  themselves  off  as 
Protestants.  The  test  oath  was  insufficient  because 
Quakers  could  not  take  an  oath,  and  thus  were  un- 
fairly put  in  a  position  of  being  suspected  of  popery, 
and  the  papists,  as  the  last  six  months  had  shown, 
could  get  dispensation  to  take  any  kind  of  oath, 
whether  it  was  against  their  religion  or  not  So  he 
offers  a  new  kind  of  test,  which  is  not  a  test  oath, 
but  a  test  affirmation  which  can  be  taken  by  Quakers 
and  everybody  who  is  an  honest  protestant. 

He  gives  a  form  of  this  test  affirmation,  which  is 
certainly  a  stiff  one.  The  affiant  declares,  "in  good 
conscience  and  in  the  sight  of  God  and  man,"  that 
Charles  11.  is  the  lawful  king,  that  the  Pope  has  no 
authority  to  depose  him  or  absolve  his  subjects  from 
their  allegiance,  or  give  them  the  right  to  conspire 
against  him  or  assassinate  him  ;  and  then  the  affiant 
goes  on  denying  all  the  important  doctrines  of  Ro- 
manism, and  closes  by  declaring  that  he  does  this 
without  any  equivocation  or  mental  reservation,  and 
that  the  words  he  uses  are  to  be  taken  in  their  plain 
and  usual  sense. 

This  test,  Penn  proposed,  should  be  administered 
through  magistrates  and  parish  officers  to  every  one 
in  England  ;  and  every  one  should  be  compelled  to 
take  it  annually  on  Ash  Wednesday,  the  day  **  when 

195 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

the  Pope  curses  all  Protestants."   It  would,  he  argued, 
unite  the  whole  Protestant  interest 

It  would  certainly,  if  it  had  been  adopted,  have 
put  the  Quakers  in  a  much-improved  position,  and 
relieved  them  from  the  violent  accusations  of  the 
rabble.  Penn's  serious  proposal  of  it  no  doubt 
helped  to  relieve  to  some  extent  both  him  and  his 
sect  from  the  suspicion  of  Jesuitism. 


196 


XIV 

THE   HOLY    EXPERIMENT   OF    PENNSYLVANIA 

Almost  immediately  after  Perm's  first  experience 
in  practical  politics  in  his  attempt  to  secure  the  elec- 
tion to  Parliament  of  Algernon  Sydney,  he  came 
into  still  closer  contact  with  political  life  and  govern- 
ment His  efforts  for  Sydney  and  his  pamphlet 
against  popery  were  in  the  year  1679,  and  in  1680 
we  find  him  moving  to  obtain  from  the  crown  a  grant 
of  the  land  in  America  which  he  was  to  call  Penn- 
sylvania. 

At  first  sight  this  might  seem  to  be  a  rather  sud- 
den move  on  his  part ;  but  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  the  project  had  been  more  or  less  in  his  mind 
for  twenty  years.  His  biographers  have  usually  as- 
signed to  him  the  credit  of  originating  this  idea  of 
establishing  a  Quaker  colony.  But  the  idea  was  not 
at  all  original  with  him  ;  and  if  it  originated  with  any 
one  person,  it  was  with  George  Fox.  Even  the  tract 
of  land  selected  for  the  colony  was  not  of  Penn's 
choosing,  for  both  Fox  and  the  Quakers  had  had 
their  attention  directed  towards  it  for  a  long  time. 

Almost  as  soon  as  they  were  conscious  of  being  a  i^ 
sect   the    Quakers   had    thought   of  establishing   a 
refuge  for  themselves  in  the  American  wilderness. 
Suffering  so  severely  from  the  laws  made  against 
them,  it  was   natural    that   they  should   have   this 

197 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

thought  The  Puritans  had  gone  out  to  Massachu- 
setts, where  they  were  having  their  own  way  in  re- 
ligious matters,  and  the  Roman  CathoHcs,  under  the 
leadership  of  Lord  Baltimore,  had  gone  to  Maryland. 

But  where  should  the  Quakers  go  ?  They  must 
have  a  territory  and  colony  of  their  own,  for  those 
of  them  who  had  gone  to  Massachusetts  were  being 
whipped  at  the  cart's  tail,  and  four  of  them  were 
hung.  They  were  worse  off  in  Massachusetts  than 
in  England.  They  could  not  get  land  anywhere  in 
New  England.  They  did  not  care  to  go  among  the 
Churchmen  in  Virginia,  nor  among  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics in  Maryland  ;  and  the  Dutch  held  New  York. 

As  early  almost  as  the  year  1650,  certainly  as 
early  as  1656  or  1657,  George  Fox  had  fixed  his 
ihoughts  on  that  great  region  which  lay  unoccupied 
just  north  of  Maryland  and  behind  New  Jersey.  It 
had  not  been  taken  by  anybody  in  particular,  be- 
cause it  was  some  distance  back  from  the  sea-shore. 
But  a  great  river,  which  the  Dutch  had  called  the 
Zuydt,  the  Swedes  New  Swedeland  Stream,  and  the 
English  the  Delaware,  led  up  to  it,  and  it  was  said 
to  be  easy  enough  of  access. 

There  was  a  Quaker  in  those  days  named  Josiah 
Cole,  who  had  already  travelled  in  America  and  had 
been  among  the  Indian  tribes.  Fox  consulted  with 
him,  and  when  Cole  made  a  second  journey  to 
America,  in  1660,  he  was  commissioned  to  treat  with 
the  Susquehanna  Indians,  who  were  supposed  to  be 
the  red  lords  of  that  great  space  north  of  Maryland. 
Cole  went  among  these  Indians,  and  told  them  his 
errand.    But  they  were  at  war  with  other  tribes,  and 

X98 


THE  HOLY  EXPERIMENT  OE  PENNSYLVANIA 

William  Fuller,  a  Maryland  Quaker  of  much  influ- 
ence, who  must  be  relied  upon  to  make  the  pur- 
chase, was  absent  Nothing  could  be  done  at  that 
time,  and  in  November,  1660,  Cole  reported  this 
result  to  Fox  in  a  letter,  which  may  still  be  read  in 
Bowden's  "  History  of  the  Friends  in  America."  * 

Although  nothing  could  be  done,  the  subject  was 
no  doubt  debated  among  the  followers  of  Fox  in 
England,  and  in  the  year  after  Cole's  letter  was 
written  the  discussion  must  have  reached  the  ears 
of  Penn,  who  was  then  a  student  at  Christ  Church' 
College  ;  for  twenty  years  afterwards  he  writes,  "  I 
had  an  opening  of  joy  as  to  these  parts  in  the  year 
1 66 1  at  Oxford." 

It  was  about  this  same  time  that  Penn  received 
his  first  impulse  towards  the  Quaker  faith,  from  the 
preaching  of  Thomas  Loe,  and  at  the  meetings 
where  he  heard  Loe  he  must  have  heard  also  of  the 
plan  for  a  Quaker  colony  in  America,  so  the  two 
great  things  of  his  life,  his  religion  and  his  colony, 
were  suggested  to  his  mind  at  almost  the  same  ^ime, 
or  at  least  within  a  year  of  each  other,  while  he  was 
a  youth  at  college. 

The  thought  of  starting  life  and  religion  afresh  in* 
the  virgin  forests  of  America  would  appeal  strongly 
to  Penn  and  carry  him  away  into  boundless  enthu- 
siasm. It  must  have  touched  him  deeply  when  it 
first  entered  his  young  mind.  He  says  it  was  an 
"opening  of  joy,"  and  we  can  easily  fancy  how  a 


*  Vol.  i.  p.  389.     See  also  Pennsylvania :  Colony  and  Common- 
wealth, p.  2. 

199 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

college  boy's  imagination  would  run  riot  with  such 
a  suggestion.  Even  if  he  had  not  been  religious, 
the  thought  of  subduing  nature  and  the  adventures 
of  the  wilderness  would  arouse  the  strongest  energies 
of  a  soul  that  was  naturally  vigorous  and  manly. 
But  when,  in  addition,  his  rather  over-serious  moral 
nature  saw  the  vision  of  leading  out  a  persecuted 
people  to  liberty  and  happiness,  delivering  them 
from  imprisonment,  tithes,  and  corruption,  and  estab- 
lishing for  them,  far  from  contamination,  the  primi- 
tive religion  of  Christ,  we  can  understand  why  he 
describes  it  as  "an  opening  of  joy." 

In  the  year  1680,  when  he  began  to  negotiate 
with  the  crown  for  the  great  tract  of  land  he  had 
dreamed  of  when  a  boy  and  which  the  Quakers  had 
so  long  hoped  to  secure,  he  had  already  had  some 
experience  in  colonial  business.  New  Jersey  had 
been  divided  into  two  colonies, — East  Jersey,  be- 
longing to  Sir  George  Carteret,  and  West  Jersey, 
belonging  to  Lord  Berkeley.  West  Jersey  was  sold, 
in  1I75,  by  Lord  Berkeley  to  John  Fenwick,  in  trust 
for  Edward  Byllinge.  Both  Fenwick  and  Byllinge 
were  Quakers,  and  getting  into  a  dispute  about  the 
property,  called  upon  Penn  to  act  as  arbitrator.  The 
Quakers  were  very  much  opposed  to  law-suits  among 
their  own  people,  and  wherever  it  was  possible 
peace-makers,  as  they  were  called,  settied  all  dis- 
putes. 

Fenwick  was  dissatisfied  with  Penn's  decision,  and 
Penn  seems  to  have  been  very  uneasy  lest  there 
might  still  be  a  law-suit,  which  would  bring  discredit 
on  their  faith.     The  efforts  he  used  to  bring  about 

200 


THE   HOLY   EXPERIMENT  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 

a  settlement  seem  to  show  that  the  avoidance  of  law-Zl 
suits  was  at  that  time  of  prime  importance.  Hel. 
pleaded  hard  with  Fenwick  to  "  prevent  the  mischief  | 
that  will  certainly  follow  divulging  it  in  Westminster  / 
Hall,"  and  at  last  he  was  successful.  ^ 

Byllinge,  however,  soon  went  bankrupt,  and  trans-  .| 
ferred  his  interest  in  West  Jersey  to  Penn  and  some  // 
others   to  hold  as  trustees  for  the    benefit  of  his^' 
creditors.     Penn  was  active  in  managing  the  prop- 
erty, secured  a  definite  boundary  line  between   it 
and  East  Jersey,   and   appears  to  have  assisted  in 
drawing  up,  in  1676,  a  constitution  for  its  govern-  / 
ment. 

In  this  constitution  religious  liberty  is  established, 
as  we  should  naturally  expect  in  any  constitution 
Penn  or  the  Quakers  were  concerned  with,  and  fair 
trial  by  jury  is  also  secured,  for  Penn  had  suffered 
much  from  the  violation  of  fair  trial  in  England. 
Many  Quakers  went  out  to  West  Jersey,  and  their 
descendants  still  form  a  respectable  element  in  the 
population.  So  Penn  was  instrumental  in  establish- 
ing somewhat  of  a  refuge  for  his  people  in  West 
Jersey  five  or  six  years  before  he  received  the  grant 
of  Pennsylvania. 

Sir  George  Carteret,  who  owned  East  Jersey,  died 
in  1679,  and  by  his  will  left  directions  that  his  prov- 
ince should  be  sold  ;  and  Penn  and  eleven  others  be- 
came the  purchasers.  They  soon  admitted  twelve 
more  to  share  the  property  with  them,  so  that  there 
were  twenty-four  proprietors.  They  appointed  as 
governor  Robert  Barclay,  who  had  become  a  Quaker 
about  the  same  time  as  Penn,  and  he  was  now  a 

201 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

theologian  and  the  author  of  the  book  known  as 
*'  Barclay  s  Apology,"  which  has  usually  been  re- 
garded as  the  ablest  of  all  statements  of  Quaker 
doctrine.  But  he  never  went  to  the  province.  He 
remained  in  England  and  sent  out  deputies  to  gov- 
ern in  his  name.  Under  this  Quaker  governor  and 
the  Quaker  proprietors  a  few  of  the  sect  were  added 
to  the  population. 

But  neither  East  nor  West  Jersey  became  Quaker 
strongholds.  It  seemed  to  be  impossible  to  make 
them  such.  They  never  realized  the  original  ex- 
pectations of  Fox  and  others  when  they  had  looked 
upon  the  land  north  of  Maryland  as  the  future  home 
of  their  faith  in  America.  There  were  few  elements 
of  prosperity  in  the  Jerseys.  The  soil  was  not  so 
fertile  and  the  general  characteristics  not  so  attrac- 
tive as  the  vast  forests  and  mountain  ranges  of  Penn- 
sylvania. Penn's  interest  in  New  Jersey  was  slight, 
and  soon  disappeared  altogether  from  his  life  ;  for  in 
1702  the  proprietors  of  both  the  Jerseys  surrendered 
their  rights  to  Queen  Ann,  and  henceforth  the  two 
provinces  were  one  under  the  direct  rule  of  the 
crown. 

The  original  plan  which  Fox  had  entertained  of 
securing  the  land  north  of  Maryland  having  re- 
mained in  abeyance  for  twenty  years,  there  must 
have  been  some  special  reason  why  Penn  deter- 
mined to  act  upon  it  and  carry  it  out  in  the  year 
1 680.  But  of  this  reason  we  are  not  informed,  and 
can  only  conjecture. 

Possibly  in  the  four  or  five  years  since  1676, 
during  which  he  had  been  concerned  with  the  man- 

202 


THE  HOLY   EXPERIMENT  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 

agement  of  the  Jerseys,  he  not  only  learned  of 
the  vast  superiority  of  the  land  which  lay  the  other 
side  of  the  Delaware,  but  he  saw  that  the  Jerseys 
could  never  be  made  into  a  real  Quaker  colony,  the 
sort  of  colony  which  Fox  and  the  early  Quakers 
had  originally  designed.  No  doubt  he  also  saw 
that  if  this  original  design  was  ever  to  be  carried 
into  effect  some  one  man  must  take  hold  of  it  and 
push  it  through  with  enthusiasm.  He  was  rich, 
burdened  with  no  cares  except  those  he  chose  to 
create,  and  he  had  inherited  a  valuable  friendship 
and  influence  with  the  king  and  with  the  Duke  of 
York,  who  was  heir  to  the  throne. 

Why  wait  longer  ?     After  thirty  years  of  struggle,   "^ 
ardent  advocacy  of  liberty  of  conscience,  and  heroic 
endurance   of    imprisonment,   the  Quakers,  though  ^ 

greatly  increased  in  numbers,  were  as  much  perse-  y 
cuted  as  ever.  They  had  failed  to  convince  the 
governing  powers  that  they  ought  to  be  let  alone  ; 
they  had  failed  to  establish  as  the  universal  practice 
of  England  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  freedom.  Why 
should  not  some  of  them  go  where  they  could  cre- 
ate such  freedom  as  they  chose? 

There  was  also  a  little  circumstance  which  might  *^ 
be  a  great  help.     Admiral  Penn  had  never  received 
all  his  salary  as  a  naval  officer  from  the  crown,  and      >»^ 
he  had  lent  the  crown  money  for  naval  purposes. 
This  debt  now  amounted  to  ;£"  16,000,  not  a  large 
sum  in  our  times  for  a  government  to  pay ;  but 

Charles  II.  was  always  in  want  of  money.      He  had*- • 

an  expensive  court,  and  expensive  favorites  and 
mistresses   to   keep    amused,  and   was,  indeed,   so 

203 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

straightened  that  he  had  sacrificed  his  own  honor 
and  the  honor  of  his  country  for  the  sake  of  receiv- 
ing secret  assistance  from  the  King  of  France.  He 
would  never  pay  Penn  ;£"  16,000  in  money.  He 
would  keep  putting  it  off,  no  matter  how  urgently 
pressed.  But  he  might  be  willing  to  pay  it  in  wild 
uninhabited  land.  A  suggestion  to  that  effect  would 
strike  him  at  once  as  a  good  bargain.  He  would  get 
rid  of  a  troublesome  debt  without  paying  a  penny, 
he  would  strengthen  the  colonial  possessions  of  the 
empire,  and  get  rid  of  many  thousands  of  Quakers 
who  were  always  complaining  and  making  an  ex- 
pensive trouble  at  home. 

It  would  be  interesting  if  we  knew  exactly  when 
and  how  it  occurred  to  Penn  to  make  this  use  of  the 
debt  he  had  inherited  from  his  father.  But  we  have 
no  details  at  this  time.  We  only  know  that  in  1680 
he  sent  a  petition  to  the  king  asking  that  in  payment 
of  the  debt  of  ;^  16, 000  he  be  given  a  tract  of  land 
in  America  lying  north  of  Maryland,  **  bounded  on 
the  east  by  the  Delaware  River,  on  the  west  limited 
as  Maryland,  and  northward  to  extend  as  far  as 
plan  table." 

Penn  must  have  previously  discussed  this  grant 
with  the  leading  Quakers,  and  discussed  also  his  future 
plans  for  settling  and  governing  his  province.  It  is 
impossible  to  think  of  his  not  doing  so ;  and  he 
must  also  have  sounded  some  of  the  people  at  court 
and  gauged  the  probability  of  success  for  his  pe- 
•tition.  We  know  from  his  subsequent  letters  that 
he  secured  the  assistance  and  influence  of  Lord 
North  and  Lord  Sunderland. 

204 


THE   HOLY  EXPERIMENT   OF   PENNSYLVANIA 

When  the  petition  came  before  a  committee  of 
the  king's  privy  council  there  was  considerable  dis- 
cussion about  the  boundaries,  whether  they  would 
not  conflict  with  the  lines  of  some  of  the  New  Eng- 
land colonies  whose  charters  extended  them  west- 
ward to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  there  was  also  some 
difficulty  about  the  boundaries  on  Maryland.  The 
committee  settled  all  these  questions  to  their  own 
satisfaction ;  but  the  settlement  was  by  no  means 
permanent.  No  colony  was  ever  given  boundaries 
which  occasioned  so  much  dispute.  Terrible  con- 
troversies and  disastrous  petty  warfare  followed  be- 
cause Pennsylvania  was  believed  to  cut  off  the 
western  extension  of  Connecticut  The  boundary 
on  Maryland  was  litigated  for  over  seventy  years. 
But  it  is  needless  to  discuss  these  questions  here,  as 
I  have  treated  them  very  fully  in  another  book.* 

Suffice  it  to  say  now  that  through  an  unfortunate 
mistake  the  apparent  boundaries  of  Maryland  had 
thirty  years  before  been  made  to  include  a  large 
part  of  what  is  now  Pennsylvania ;  and  through  an 
equally  unfortunate  mistake  the  apparent  boundaries 
of  Pennsylvania  were  made  to  include  nearly  the 
whole  of  Maryland.  If  the  Maryland  boundaries 
were  right,  Philadelphia  was  a  Maryland  town,  and 
if  the  Pennsylvania  boundaries  were  right,  Baltimore 
was  a  Pennsylvania  town. 

But  independently  of  all  these  questions,  the  tract 
of  land  which  Penn  and  his  heirs  finally  received, 
and  which  it  was  the  intention  of  the  king  that  they 

*  The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,  chaps,  x.  and  xi. 
205 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

should  receive,  was  an  enormous  one,  containing  over 
forty  thousand  square  miles  of  territory,  the  largest 
tract  that  had  ever  been  given  in  America  to  a  single 
individual,  and,  as  we  now  know,  the  richest  in  natural 
resources  of  coal,  iron,  petroleum,  and  a  fertile  soil. 
y       It  was  the  only  royal  grant  in  America  that  was   v^ 
{bought  with  money.     In  all  other  instances  when  a 
province  was  given  to  a  single  individual,  as  to  Lord 
Baltimore,  or  to  a  corporation,  as  in    the    case  of 
Massachusetts,  no  price  was  paid.     The  agreement 
of  the  people  to  risk  their  lives  and  fortune  in  set- 
tling the  province  was  supposed  to  be  a  sufficient 
consideration  for    the  grant     But  Penn  paid  what 
was  in  effect  a  very  large  sum  by  agreeing  to  accept 
his  grant  in  extinguishment  of  the    debt  due  him 
from  the  crown.     This    partially  explains    the  vast 
size  of  his  province.     As  he  was  offering  a  larger    *" 
consideration  than  any  one  before  him  had  offered, 
he  was  certainly  entitled  to  receive  more  land  than 
any  of  his  predecessors  had  received.     Then,  too, 
I    we  must  remember  that  both  the  king  and  the  Duke 
•'    of  York    felt  particularly   bound  to  Penn    for   his 
I  father's   sake,    and    had    promised    the    father   that 
I   they  would  aid  and  protect  the   son.     There   was 
I   surely  no  other  Quaker  whose  circumstances  and 
1   hereditary  influence  would  have  enabled  him  to  ob- 
N^tain  for  his  people  such  a  huge  and  valuable  territory. 
On  the  4th  of  March,  1681,  the  charter  received 
the  king's  signature,  and  Penn  was  lord  of  a  domain 
considerably  larger  than  Ireland,  and  lacking  only 
about  six  thousand  square  miles  of  being  as  large  as 
England. 

206 


THE  HOLY   EXPERIMENT  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 

"  This  day  my  country  was  confirmed  to  me  under  the  great  seal 
of  England,  with  large  powers  and  privileges,  by  the  name  of  Penn- 
sylvania; a  name  the  king  would  give  it  in  honor  of  my  father.  I 
chose  New  Wales,  being  as  this  a  pretty  hilly  country,  but  Penn  be- 
ing Welsh  for  a  head,  as  Pennanmoire  in  Wales,  and  Penrith  in 
Cumberland,  and  Penn  in  Buckinghamshire,  the  highest  land  in 
England,  called  this  Pennsylvania,  which  is  the  high  or  head  wood- 
lands ;  for  I  proposed  when  the  secretary,  a  Welshman,  refused  to 
have  it  called  New  Wales,  Sylvania,  and  they  added  Penn  to  it;  and 
though  I  much  opposed  it  and  went  to  the  king  to  have  it  struck  out 
and  altered,  he  said  it  was  past  and  would  take  it  upon  him  ;  nor 
could  twenty  guineas  move  the  under  secretary  to  vary  the  name  ; 
for  I  feared  lest  it  should  be  looked  on  as  a  vanity  in  me,  and  not  as 
a  respect  in  the  king,  as  it  truly  was,  to  my  father,  whom  he  often 
mentions  with  praise."  (Hazard's  Annals,  500.) 

The   charter  was   modelled    largely   on   the    one] 
granted  to  Lord  Baltimore  for  Maryland  fifty  years  ; 
before,  and  was  thoroughly  feudal  in  its  nature.    Penn" 
was  in  somewhat  the  same  position  as  the  lord  of  an 
old  English  manor.     The  land  was  all  his,  and  the 
colonists  were  to  be  his  tenants,  paying  him  rent.     In 
exchange  for  this  great  privilege  he  was  to  pay  to 
the  king  two  beaver-skins  annually,  to  be  delivered 
at  the  king's  castle  at  Windsor,  and  the  king  was 
also  to  receive  a  fifth  of  all  the  gold  and  silver  that 
should  be  found  in  the  province. 

Penn  was,  however,  compelled  by  the  charter,  as 
Lord  Baltimore  had  been  compelled  by  his  charter, 
to  give  his  colonists  free  government.  The  laws  were 
to  be  made  by  him  with  the  assent  of  the  people  or 
their  delegates,  which,  translated  into  actual  practice, 
gave  the  people  the  right  to  elect  a  legislative  body, 
and  gave  Penn  a  veto  on  such  acts  as  this  legislative 
body  should  pass.  He  had  also  the  power  to  ap- 
point magistrates,  judges,  and  other  officers,  and  to* 

207 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

grant  pardons  for  crimes.     By  the  charter  he  was 
the  perpetual  governor  of  the  colony ;  but  he  usu- 
ally remained  in  England,  and  appointed  a  deputy 
governor  to  exercise  his  authority.     In   brief,  the! 
people  controlled  the  legislative  part  of  the  govern-/ 
ment,  while  Penn,  through  his  power  to  appoint  all\ 
officials,  controlled  the  executive. 

About  a  month  after  he  received  his  charter,  he 
^commissioned  his  cousin,  William  Markham,  a  son 
of  Admiral  Penn's  sister,  to  go  out  to  Pennsylvania, 
take  possession  of  it  in  his  name,  and,  until  a  regular 
government  could  be  established,  rule  over  the  scat- 
tered families  of  Swedes,  English,  and  Dutch  who 
•e  living  along  the  banks  of  the  Delaware.    Mark- 
lam  reached  the  Delaware  about  the  first  of  July, 
1 68 1,  and  made  his  head-quarters  at  a  place  called 
Upland,  about  fifteen  miles  below  the  present  site  of 
Philadelphia.    He  remained  there  in  charge  of  affairs 
more  than  a  year,  for  Penn  did  not  arrive  in  his 
province  until  October,  1682. 

In  the  mean  time  Penn  secured    an  addition  to 
his  territory.     Learning  from  Markham  that  Lord 
Baltimore  disputed  his  boundaries,  he  obtained,  by  a 
grant  from  the  Duke  of  York,  the  land  now  included 
r      in  the  State  of  Delaware.     Penn's  object  in  getting 
I       this  additional   land  was  to  secure  control  of  the 
j     whole  western  shore  of  the  Delaware  River  and  Bay 
'       from  his  province  down  to  the  ocean,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  strengthen  himself  against  Lord  Balti- 
more, whose  claims,  according  to  Markham's  account, 
cut  far  into  the  southern  half  of  Pennsylvania. 
**   —  I  Penn  also,  before  he  started  for  his  province,  ad^ 
^^  208  "^ 


THE  HOLY  EXPERIMENT  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 

\  vertisfii  for  settlers,  and  explained  fully  the  condi- 
Itions  and  prospectsj  At  the  same  time  he  warned 
the  public,  in  his  careful,  conscientious  way,  that  they 
must  not  rush  inconsiderately  into  this  new  enter- 
prise. They  would  have  to  endure  a  winter  in 
Pennsylvania  before  they  could  enjoy  a  summer,  and 
be  willing  to  go  two  or  three  years  without  the  com- 
forts and  conveniences  of  England.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  planting  of  colonies,  he  said,  was 
great  and  glorious  work,  and  he  went  on  to  show 
how  it  would  strengthen  England,  instead  of  weak- 
ening her,  as  some  supposed.  **" 
Those  who  wished  to  come  to  him  could  have 
land  by  paying  ;^ioo  for  five  thousand  acres,  and 
annually  thereafter  a  shilling  rent  for  every  hundred 
acres.  Those  who  had  not  ready  money  to  pay  in 
this  way  could  have  two  hundred  acres  or  less  at 
the  rent  of  a  shilling  per  acre.  They  should  have 
their  own  legislature  ;  no  laws  should  be  passed  or 
money  raised  without  the  people's  consent ;  and 
they  should  have  all  the  British  rights  and  liberties. 

Penn  was,  indeed,  very  busy  with  preparations 
during  the  year  Markham  waited  for  him.  He 
would  have  started  immediately,  but  could  not.  He 
wished  to  take  out  with  him  a  large  number  of 
settlers.  Many  had  agreed  to  go,  but  they  wanted 
time  to  settle  their  home  affairs.  He  was  expecting 
people  from  France,  Holland,  and  Scotland,  as  well 
as  from  England.  In  a  Jettej;  written  at  this  time 
he  speaks  of  his  enterprise  as  **  an  holy  experiment," 
a  phrase  which  has  now  for  a  long  time  been  applied 
to  it  by  the  Quakers. 

14  209 


•  T" 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 


He  must  have  enjoyed  the  preparations,  and 
looked  forward  with  delight  and  impatience  to  the 
day  when  he  could  plunge  with  his  people  into  the 
wilderness.  And  here  it  should  be  said  that  he  in- 
tended that  his  province  should  be  profitable.  He 
intended  to  increase  his  own  and  his  family's  fortune, 
to  widen  his  influence  through  wealth  and  become  a 

iman  of  power  in  the  world,  the  feudal  ruler  of  a 

I  great   and   prosperous   province,   which   was   large 

/  enough  to  be  an  empire. 

^  This  was  not  inconsistent  with  calling  his  enter- 
prise "an  holy  experiment,"  nor  with  his  intention 
to  establish  a  refuge  for  the  people  of  his  faith.  He 
intended  to  accomplish  both ;  to  accomplish,  indeed, 
everything ;  ro  prove  that  complete  religious  liberty 
was  not  only  right  and  Christian,  but  profitable  and 
advantageous  in  every  way.  He  would  show  how 
people  would  flourish  under  it  in  agriculture,  com- 
merce, and  all  the  arts  and  refinements  of  life.  He 
would  show  that  government  could  be  carried  on 
without  war  and  without  oaths,  that  the  pure,  origi- 
nal, primitive  Christianity  of  the  times  of  the  apos- 
tles could  be  maintained  without  an  established 
church,  without  a  hireling  ministry,  without  cruelty 
or  persecution,  without  ridiculous  dogmas  or  un- 
manly ritual,  simply  by  its  own  innate  power,  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  the  inward  light.  He  would  do  this 
through  the  aid  of  his  followers,  the  Quakers,  who 
would  never  desert  iiim,. through  his  own  sincerity 
of  purpose  and  energy  of  mind,  through  his  feudal 
ownership  of  a  vast  domain,  and  through  the  power 
which  wealth  would  give. 


2IO 


THE  HOLY  EXPERIMENT  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 

It  was  a  stupendous  plan,  an  heroic  grasp  for  a 
whole  world  of  light  and  truth  bv  one  who  had  been 
living  for  centuries  in  darkness^for  Penn  was  typical 
of  his  time  ;  he  was  the  voice  of  his  time  crying 
passionately,  recklessly,  for  light  after  the  long  night 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  ,,__^ 

Men  came  to  him  at  this  time,  and  said  that  they  / 
would  organize  a  company  and  give  him  £6ooOy  if 
he  would  give  to  them  the  monopoly  of  all  the  trade  I 
with  the  Indians  in  his  province,  but  he  refused  it-^ 

"  As  the  Lord  gave  it  [his  province]  me  over  all  and  great  opposi- 
tion, ...  I  would  not  abuse  his  love,  nor  act  unworthy  of  his  provi- 
dence, and  so  defile  what  came  to  me  clean.  No;  let  the  Lord 
guide  me  by  his  wisdom,  and  preserve  me  to  honor  His  name  and  •■ 
serve  His  truth  and  people,  that  an  example  and  standard  may  be  set 
up  to  the  nations;  there  may  be  room  there,  though  none  here."  / 


He    had   peculiar   opinions    about    the    Indians^ 
opinions  which  were  very  peculiar  in  his  time,  butj 
shared  with  him  by  the  Quakers.     He  accepted  the! 
law  of  that  age,  that  Christians  could  take  the  land 
of  heathen  savages ;  but  he  added  to  it  that  the 
Christians  must  pay  for  every  rod  of  the  land,  and  \ 
in  their  trade  and  dealings  with  the  Indians  treat  \ 
them  with  perfect  fairness  and  honor.     This  idea  of^ 
scrupulously  paying  the  Indians  for  their  land  was  f 
not  original  with  him,  but  suggested,  as  he  tells  us,    '"«^ 
by  the  Bishop  of  London.*     It  was  easy  enough  to 
write  or  repeat  a  philanthropic  proposition  like  this. 
Many  have  done  so.     But  Penn  lived  up  to  it 

He  prepared  a  paper  called  **  conditions  or  con- 

*  Buck's  Penn  in  America,  p.  127. 
211 


/ 


THE   TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

cessions,"  by  which  his  province  should  be  gov- 
erned until  a  regular  government  could  be  estab- 
lished. These  conditions  provided  for  the  survey 
of  a  city,  laying  out  of  roads,  and  the  last  part 
attempted  to  regulate  intercourse  with  the  Indians 
in  such  a  way  that  they  should  not  be  defrauded. 
Trade  with  them  was  to  be  openly  and  honestly  con- 
ducted. A  colonist  who  wronged  an  Indian  was  to 
be  punished  as  if  he  had  wronged  a  white  man. 
Disputes  between  colonists  and  Indians  were  to  be 
settled  by  a  jury  of  twelve,  six  of  whom  should  be 
Indians. 

He  objected  to  giving  any  one  a  monopoly  of 
trade  with  the  Indians,  not  only  because  the  Indians 
might  be  defrauded,  but  because  the  monopoly 
would  be  unfair.  For  the  same  reason  he  refused 
large  prices  for  particular  points  of  advantage  in  the 
province,  because  he  wished  to  treat  all  alike.  Some 
of  the  people  of  his  own  faith  tried  to  drive  special 
bargains  with  him  for  land  ;  but  he  refused,  and  de- 
clared that  all  must  buy  at  the  same  rates.  One 
who  had  been  thus  disappointed  reports  in  a  letter, 
**  I  believe  he  truly  does  aim  more  at  justice  and 
righteousness,  and  spreading  of  truth  than  at  his 
own  particular  gain." 

He  succeeded  in  getting  some  ships  started  with 
emigrants,  although  he  was  unable  to  accompany 
them  ;  and  in  the  autumn  after  Markham  started  he 
sent  out  three  commissioners  to  fix  upon  a  site  for  a 
town,  and  treat  with  the  Indians.  Jrom  his  instruc- 
»inj]g  [Q  fhf^i^^  commissioners  we  learn  how  he  was 
planning  his  great  experiment^  and  what  a  pleasure 

— '  212  ' 


THE  HOLY  EXPERIMENT  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 

it  must  have  been  to  imagine  to  himself  an  ideal 
Quaker  town,  and  send  men  to  lay  it  out  in  the  fresh 
wilderness. 

He  tells  them  to  sound  all  the  creeks  on  the  Penn- 
sylvania side  of  the  Delaware  "  in  order  to  settle  a 
great  town,  and  be  sure  to  make  your  choice  where 
it  is  most  navigable,  high,  dry,  and  healthy  ;  that  is, 
where  most  ships  may  best  ride,  of  deepest  draught 
of  water,  if  possible  to  load  or  unload  at  the  bank  or 
key  side,  without  boating  or  lighterage."  It  would 
be  well,  he  tells  them,  if  the  creek  coming  into  the 
river  where  they  build  the  town  be  navigable  for 
boats  up  into  the  country. 

This  was  his  first  conception  of  Philadelphia ;  and 
his  commissioners  had  no  trouble  in  locating  it ;  for 
we  learn  from  other  sources  that  the  scattered  fami- 
lies that  lived  along  the  river  had  long  known  where 
was  the  best  site  for  a  great  town.  The  advantages 
Penn  mentions  were,  on  the  whole,  best  combined  at 
a  spot  a  few  miles  north  of  the  mouth  of  the  Schuyl- 
kill, which  was  the  sort  of  creek  he  wanted,  naviga- 
ble for  boats  up  into  the  country. 

He  has  told  us  in  a  passage  already  quoted  why) 
the  province  was  given  its  name,  but  we  have  no 
explanation  of  why  Philadelphia  was  so  called.    The 
word  means  brotherly  love,  but  I  do  not  think  that 
was  the  reason.     It  was  the  name  of  an  ancient  city 
in  Asia   Minor  where   one  of  the  seven  churches 
of  the  primitive  Christians  was  established  ;  and  as 
the  Quakers  were  attempting  to  return  to  primitive  \ 
Christianity,  this  would  be  a  strong  reason  for  giving] 
the  name. 

213 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

He  goes  on  to  tell  the  commissioners  how  to  lay 
out  the  land,  to  "  be  impartially  just  and  courteous" 
to  any  old  settlers  they  found  on  it,  to  "  be  tender 
of  offending  the  Indians,  and  hearken  by  honest 
spies,  if  you  can  hear  that  anybody  inveigles  them 
not  to  sell,  or  to  stand  off  and  raise  the  value  upon 
you."  He  arranges  the  figure  of  the  town  with  uni- 
form streets,  places  the  store-houses  and  markets 
where  he  thinks  they  should  be,  and  directs  that 
they  should  select  a  place  in  the  middle  of  the  line 
of  houses  facing  the  river  *•  for  the  situation  of  my 
house."  He  must  have  been  as  happy  as  a  boy 
building  a  toy  city,  in  the  middle  of  which  he  was 
to  live  like  a  patriarch  surrounded  by  his  people. 

"  Let  every  house  be  placed,  if  the  person  pleases,  in  the  middle 
of  its  plat,  as  to  the  breadth  way  of  it,  that  so  there  may  be  ground  on 
each  side  for  gardens  or  orchards,  or  fields,  that  it  may  be  a  green 
country  town,  which  will  never  be  burnt  and  always  wholesome." 

Then  the  commissioners  were  to  see  that  '*  no  vice 
or  evil  conversation  go  uncomplained  of  or  unpun- 
ished in  any ;  that  God  be  not  provoked  to  wrath 
against  the  country."  He  sent  an  excellent  letter 
to  the  Indians,  whom  he  told  of  the  Great  Spirit 
who  had  made  both  the  white  man  and  the  red. 


"  Now  the  great  God  hath  been  pleased  to  make  me  concerned  in 
your  part  of  the  world  ;  and  the  king  of  the  country  where  I  live 
hath  given  me  a  great  province  therein  ;  but  I  desire  to  enjoy  it  with 
your  love  and  consent,  that  we  may  always  live  together  as  neigh- 
bors and  friends  ;  else  what  would  the  great  God  do  to  us  who  hath 
made  us  (not  to  devour  and  destroy  one  another,  but)  to  live  soberly 
and  kindly  together  in  the  world  ?" 

214 


THE   HOLY  EXPERIMENT   OF  PENNSYLVANIA 

While  he  was  making  all  these  preparations  he  ^ 
did  not  forget  George  Fox,  and  set  aside  for  him  a 
gift  of  twelve  hundred  and  fifty  acres  of  land.  He 
had  also  other  things  to  think  of  besides  Pennsyl- 
vania. His  writings  were  during  this  year  all  pubA 
lished  together  in  folio,  several  of  his  essays,  notably 
**  No  Cross,  No  Crown,  having  reached  a  second  edi-  ^ 
tion.  He  was  obliged,  at  the  same  time,  to  resist  a 
defection  caused  by  John  Wilkinson  and  John  Story,/ 
who  objected  to  the  increasing  strictness  of  disci- 
pline. They  protested  against  the  increasing  control 
over  the  conduct  and  conversation  of  individuals 
who,  they  said,  should  be  left  more  to  themselves, 
each  one  being  guided  by  the  divine  light  within 
him.  The  Quaker  discipline  had,  indeed,  become 
very  strict.  There  was  a  complete  system  of  watch- 
ing and  reporting  on  the  conduct  of  members,  and 
those  of  unsuitable  behavior  were  disowned.  Wil- 
kinson and  Story  seem  to  have  maintained  that  there 
should  be  no  disowning.  The  church  should  merely 
advise  or  remonstrate.  To  attempt  more  than  this 
was  to  drift  into  ecclesiasticism. 

It  was,  indeed,  a  delicate  question  to  decide  how 
far  the  liberty  which  the  Quakers  had  been  so  earnest 
in  advocating  should  be  limited  and  controlled.  Penn 
wrote  on  the  question  a  pamphlet  called  "  The  State 
of  Liberty  Spiritual."  Like  Fox,  he  was  always  in 
favor  of  the  discipline,  without  which,  he  said,  there | 
would  be  nothing  but  confusion. 

It  would  never  do,  he  said,  to  accept  Wilkinson's 
and  Story's  plea,  "  What  hast  thou  to  do  with  me  ? 
Leave  me  to  my  freedom  and  to  the  grace  of  God 

215 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

in  myself."  One  might  say  I  see  no  evil  in  "  paying 
tithes  to  a  hireling  priest ;"  another,  I  see  no  evil  in 
"hiding  in  times  of  persecution,"  or  in  "marrying 
by  the  priest,"  or  in  "keeping  my  shop  shut  upon 
the  world's  holidays  and  mass  days,"  or  in  "  declining 
public  testimony  in  suffering  times;"  and  so  the 
society  would  be  broken  up  and  scattered. 

"  The  power  that  Christ  gave  to  his  church  was  this,  that  offenders 
after  the  first  and  second  admonition  (not  repenting)  should  be  re- 
jected :  not  imprisoned,  plundered,  banished,  or  put  to  death." 

At  that  very  time  there  was  plenty  of  temptation 
to  hide  from  persecution  ;  for  the  magistrates,  espe- 
cially in  Bristol,  were  bestirring  themselves,  meet- 
ings were  broken  up,  heavy  fines  inflicted,  and  men, 
women,  and  even  children,  led  away  to  prison.   There 
was  more  need  than  ever  for  a  refuge  in  Pennsyl- 
vania,    But  Penn  must  pause  in  the  delightful  work 
of  planning  the  details  of  that  ideal  province  and 
follow  his  more  usual  avocation  of  comforting  and 
assisting  those  who  were  suffering  under  the  law. 
fie  had  become  such  an  important  man  that  he  had 
been  for  many  years  free  from  arrest  and  annoyance. 
But  now,  although  he  was  enough  in  favor  with  the 
king  to  receive  the  gift  of  an  empire  of  land,  he 
\  was  ordered  by  a  constable  to  stop  preaching  when 
\  he  rose  in  the  meeting  on  Gracechurch  Street     He 
'  paid  no  attention  to  the  order ;  and  it  is  said  that 
the  constable,  although  supported  by  soldiers,  was 
so  affected  by  the  solemnity  of  the  meeting  and  by 
What  he  heard  that  he  made  no  attempt  to  interfere. 

216 


XV 

GREAT  CARE  WITH  THE  CONSTITUTION  AND  LAWS 

Before  Penn  sailed  for  Pennsylvania  he  had  still 
another  task  to  perform.  He  must  prepare  a  form 
of  government  to  be  adopted  by  himself  and  the 
people  of  his  province,  and  this  he  did  in  the  spring 
of  1682. 

He  consulted  about  it  with  his  friend  AlgernoiTl, 
Sydney,  and  there  has  been  sonie  discussion  as  to 
the  share  Sydney  had  in  framing  it     Penn's  biog- 
rapher, Dixon,  gives  him  a  large  share,  saying  that  i 
it  was  at  his  instance  that  Penn  adopted  an  essen- 
tially democratic  basis,  and  that  so  continuous  was 
Sydney's  aid  that  it  is  impossible  to  separate  his 
work  from  Penn's.     But  there  is  no  evidence  that 
justifies  such  an  assertion.     The  charter  which  Penn 
had  received  from    the    crown    compelled   him    to  'f^ 
adopt  a  democratic  basis,   for  it  required  that  he  ] 
should  share  with  the  people  the  power  of  making^! 
laws. 

All  we  know  positively  of  the  aid  given  by  Sydney 
is  contained  in  a  letter  to  him  by  Penn  upbraiding  - 
him  for  abusing  the  Constitution.  Sydney  had  been  \ 
reported,  Penn  says,  of  "saying  I  had  a  good  -^ 
country,  but  the  worst  laws  in  the  world,  not  to  be  -' 
endured  or  lived  under,  and  that  the  Turk  was  not 
more  absolute  than  I."     This  had   almost  broken 

217 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

Penn's  regard  for  him,  and  the  letter  was  written  to 
"*   restore  friendship  and  remind  Sydney  that  at  least 
one  of  his  suggestions  had  been  accepted. 

This  suggestion  had  been  to  the  effect  that  the 
Constitution  as  prepared  was  too  positive,  and  ap- 
peared as  an  act  of  Penn's  which  his  people  were 
bound  to  accept  rather  than  a  proposal  which  he 
was  offering  for  their  acceptance.  Penn  did  not 
think  that  his  constitution  was  worded  in  this  positive 
way  ;  but  as  he  fully  intended  that  it  should  be  only 
a  proposal  for  his  people's  acceptance,  he  altered  it 
in  accordance  with  Sydney's  objection,  so  that  there 
should  be  no  doubt  on  that  point. 

It  appears,  also,  from  this  letter  that  Sydney  had 
prepared  a  draft  of  a  constitution,  submitted  it  to 
Penn,  and  then  taken  it  back  to  finish  and  polish  ; 
but  whether  Penn  ever  made  any  use  of  it  does  not 
appear. 

It  would  seem  as  if  too  much  had  been  made  of 

Penn's  relations  with   Sydney.       They   have    been 

spoken  of  in  Penn's  biographies  as  devoted  friends, 

and  in  Pennsylvania  their  association  with  each  other 

has  been  idealized,  and  Sydney  has  been  regarded 

as  the  champion  of  liberty  and  as  a  much  greater 

man  than  he  really  was.     It  became  the  fashion  at 

one  time  to  name  children  after  him,  and  there  are 

still  Algernon  Sydneys  to  be  found  among  some  of 

the  prominent  families  in  PhiladelphicU 

r-    Penn  supported  him  for  Parliament  and  consulted 

jhim   slightly  about   the    constitution,    but   beyond 

y that  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  intimate  with; 

uiim,   and  there  is  no  evidence  at  all  of  an  idealj 

\  218  "^ 


CARE  WITH  THE   CONSTITUTION  AND  LAWS 

friendship.  Sydney  was  what  in  those  days  was 
called  a  republican  ;  that  is  to  say,  he  wished  to 
abolish  the  British  monarchy  and  establish  in  its 
place  some  sort  of  republic  or  commonwealth.  He 
was  a  courageous,  but  a  very  violent  and  reckless 
man.  He  had  no  constructive  or  statesman-like 
qualities  ;  but  he  had  the  merit  of  not  being  much 
of  a  trimmer,  and  he  would  not  fawn  and  flatter 
when  the  tide  turned  against  him,  as  most  people 
did  at  that  time. 

He  was  executed  for  taking  part  in  the  Rye  House 
Plot  shortly  after  Penn  went  out  to  Pennsylvania, 
and  it  was  his  death  that  made  him  famous.  There 
was  only  one  witness  against  him,  and  the  law  re- 
quired two.  But  Judge  Jeffreys  was  equal  to  the 
occasion.  He  said  that  one  witness  and  a  circum- 
stance were  equivalent  to  two  witnesses  ;  and  the 
circumstance  against  Sydney  was  that  he  had  written 
an  unpublished  manuscript  against  monarchy.  The 
outcry  that  was  raised  against  this  shocking  injus- 
tice, and  the  manner  in  which  Sydney  bore  his  fate 
kept  echoing  among  the  lovers  of  liberty  for  more 
than  a  hundred  years,  and  fully  account  for  what 
now  seems  to  have  been  an  over-estimate  of  his 
importance. 

Penn,  it  may  be  said  in  passing,  was  not  a  repub-  \ 
lican.     So  far  as  we  can  judge,  he  seems  to  have  I       / 
been    usually  in   favor  of  a    limited    constitutional!  |    p/ 
monarchy  as  the  best  go"^ernment  for  England  ;  but 
in   his    relations  with   James    II.    he   seemed  very 
much  incHned  to  dispense  with  the  limitations  and 
all  constitutional  restraint. 

219 


^ 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

y^\n  preparing  his  constitution  for  Pennsylvania  he 
consulted  with  many  besides  Sydney.  We  know 
now  what  was  not  known  to  his  previous  biog- 
raphers, that  he  consulted  with  Benjamin  Furly, 
who  was  an  Englishman  from  Colchester,  who  had 
ffone  to  live  in  Holland.  He  became  a  prosperous 
merchant  at  Rotterdam,  was  a  patron  of  letters,  a 
collector  of  rare  books,  a  writer  of  some  little 
celebrity,  and  very  much  interested  in  all  separatist 
sects,  especially  the  Quakers,  whose  faith  he  seems 
to  have  for  a  time  adopted.      His  house  was  the  re- 

fsort  of  learned  and  distinguished  men,  and,  among 
others,  of  Algernon  Sydney,  and  also  Locke,  the 
"^  philosopher,  who  had  been  at  college  with  Penn  at 

Christ  Church.  Furly  had  welcomed  and  travelled 
with  Penn  and  his  companions  when  they  made  their 
missionary  journey  to  Holland  and  Germany.  He 
interested  himself  to  procure  German  emigrants  for 
Pennsylvania,  and  was,  in  effect,  Penn's  agent  on  the 
continent* 

Penn  sent  him  the  final  draft  of  the  constitution, 
and  must  also  have  submitted  to  him  a  previous 
drafl,  for  Furly  compares  the  final  draft  with  a  pre- 
vious draft,  which  he  appears  to  have  had  in  his 
possession.  He  wrote  a  long  criticism  on  the  final 
draft,  making  some  forty  or  fifty  suggestions,  which 
we  need  not  here  describe  in  detail,  because  Penn 
rejected  them  all.  In  one  point  at  least,  however, 
Furly  proved  to  be  right**  Penn  had  given  to  the 
upper  house  of  the  legislature,  or  provincial  council, 


*  Penna.  Mag.  of  Hist.,  vol.  xix.  p.  277. 
220 


CARE  WITH   THE   CONSTITUTION  AND   LAWS 

as  he  called  it,  the  sole  power  of  originating  laws.  *" 
Furly  said  that  the  lower  house  should  also  have  this 
right ;  and  when  the  constitution  had  been  in  force 
for  some  years,  this  change  was  made  after  repeated 
demands  for  it  by  the  people. 

Judging  from  all  this,  from  the  internal  evidence 
of  the  Constitution  itself,  and  from  some  other  evi- 
dence which  we  are  about  to  mention,  we  can  say 
that  Penn  consulted  very  widely  and  earnestly,  and 
took  the  greatest  pains  in  preparing  his  constitution, 
or  frame,  as  he  called  it  He  was  evidently  deter- 
mined to  have  for  his  holy  experiment  the  best 
government  possible,  and  to  obtain  the  assistance  of 
the  most  advanced  and  enlightened  thought  on  the 
subject.  Exactly  what  suggestions  he  obtained  from 
different  people  cannot  now  be  determined.  Ap- 
parently he  did  not  take  many,  preferring  to  work 
out  the  problem  in  his  own  way,  using  the  sugges- 
tions he  received  merely  as  hints  to  perfect  his  own 
plans,  without  radically  altering  them. 

Among  the  Penn  papers  in  the  Historical  Society 
of  Pennsylvania   are  a  collection  of  about   twenty 
different  drafts  of  the  constitution  which  he  prepared 
or  had  prepared  before  he  got  one  which  entirely  / 
satisfied  him.     These  drafts  have  been  arranged  in 
an  order  which  shows  the  gradual  development  of 
his  ideas,  and  also,  we  may  perhaps  say,  of  the  ideas 
of  those  who  assisted  him,  from  the  first  crude  sug-  «, 
gestions  down  to  the  finished  document  which  was    \ 
finally  adopted.  j 

None  of  them  are  entirely  in  his  handwriting.  \ 
They  are  usually  very  neatly  written,  some  appar-    \ 

221 


/- 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

ently  by  clerks  and  others,  possibly  by  persons  who 
were  offering  them  as  suggestions ;  and  some  of 
them  are  arranged  in  diagram  form,  evidently  for  the 
sake  of  greater  clearness  in  studying  and  reflecting 
on  the  subject  Many  of  them  are  interlined  and 
marked  in  various  ways  in  Penn's  handwriting. 
The  first  one  is  exceedingly  crude,  and  creates  a 
I  government  by  a  landed  aristocracy.  The  legisla- 
j  ture  is  to  be  called  the  senate,  and  consists  of  two 
houses.  The  lower  house  is  to  be  elected  by  the 
renters ;  but  the  upper  house  is  to  be  hereditary, 
and  composed  of  the  "  first  fifty  proprietors  or 
lords"  and  their  heirs.  The  baronage  of  any  one 
of  them  is  to  cease  when  his  land  is  reduced  below 
two  thousand  acres,  and  the  rest  are  to  choose 
another  in  his  place.  This  House  of  Lords  is  to  be 
always  in  being,  to  sit  and  adjourn  at  its  pleasure, 
and  "  to  appoint  all  officers  by  ballot,  in  church  and 
state."  This  would  mean  that  the  Quaker  faith  or 
some  religion  would  be  established  by  law,  so  we 
can  hardly  believe  that  Penn  was  the  author  of  this 
draft.  It  must  have  been  the  suggestion  of  one  of 
his  friends. 

The  next  draft  in  order  is  in  the  same  handwriting 
as  the  first,  and  is  marked  on  the  back  "  Darnal's 
Draught ;"  so,  presumably,  the  first  one  was  also  by 
him.  But  this  second  one  is  much  more  advanced. 
The  hereditary  quality  in  the  upper  house  has  dis- 
appeared, and  this  house  is  to  be  elected  four  out 
of  every  county  by  the  proprietors  of  the  county. 
The  governor  is  to  have  a  treble  vote  in  this  body, 
and  various   detailed   provisions  follow.     The  two 

222 


1/ 


CARE  WITH   THE   CONSTITUTION  AND   LAWS 

^houses  are  to  be  called  the  Parliament,  and  the 
governor  is  to  have  a  council  of  twenty-four,  which 
he  is  to  select  out  of  forty-eight  nominated  by  the 
two  houses.  A  system  of  law  courts  is  also  provided 
for,  and  there  are  other  details  showing  that  more 
thought  had  been  given  to  the  subject. 

The  next  draft  is  in  an  entirely  different  hand- 
writing, apparently  the  formal  handwriting  of  a  clerk. 
It  reads  as  if  some  one  had  taken  the  provisions  of 
the  previous  draft  and  written  them  in  other  lan- 
guage, making  changes  and  additions.  Many  of 
the  additions  would  belong  in  laws  rather  than  in  a 
constitution,  and,  in  fact,  several  of  them,  such  as 
making  all  prisons  work-houses,  registering  deeds, 
and  so  on,  were  afterwards  put  in  the  laws.  There 
are  many  interlineations  on  this  draft,  apparently  in 
the  handwriting  of  Penn.  At  the  end  of  it  there  is 
a  provision,  afterwards  adopted,  that  the  constitution 
should  not  be  altered  except  by  the  consent  of  the 
governor  and  six  parts  in  seven  of  the  Parliament. 

Then  comes  a  draft  in  a  new  hand,  evidently  the 
writing  of  a  well-accomplished  man,  not  a  clerk, 
which  suggests  that  during  the  infancy  or  the  first 
seven  years  of  the  colony  there  should  be  a  govern- 
ment by  a  landed  aristocracy,  which  after  the  seven 
years  had  expired  might  become  more  liberal. 

Of  the  sixteen  other  drafts  which  follow  we  need 
not  give  the  details,  because  they  are  for  the  most 
part  variations  and  enlargements  of  those  already 
given.  The  idea  that  the  upper  house,  though 
elected  by  the  people,  must  be  composed  of  large 
landholders,  clings  to  nearly  all  of  them.     Penn  con- 

223 


^^ 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

tinues  to  annotate  and  interline.  Some  of  the  drafts 
are  written  in  formal  clerkly  hands,  and  others  in 
hands  like  what  we  might  suppose  would  be  the 
scholarly  handwriting  of  some  of  Penn's  friends. 
They  become  longer  and  more  complicated  as  they 
progress,  until  at  last  we  come  to  several  which  are 
almost  the  same  as  the  one  finally  adopted. 

The  one  adopted  had  prefixed  to  it  a  preamble 
on  the  divine  origin  of  government  and  on  govern- 
ment in  general,  rather  wordy  and  diffuse,  except 
for  one  or  two  apt  sentences,  which  we  have  already 
quoted  in  the  first  chapter.  When  he  came  to  the 
actual  details  of  his  government  we  find  him  cling- 
ing quite  closely  to  the  forms  that  were  already  in 
practical  working  in  the  other  colonies  in  America. 
He  has  a  governor,  a  governor's  council,  and  an  as- 
sembly of  the  people,  just  as  in  the  constitutions 
developed  in  New  England.  The  people  are  to 
elect  the  council,  as  in  the  New  England  charters, 
and  it  is  called  the  provincial  council. 

The  variations  on  the  New  England  type  were 
first  of  all  that  the  council  was  to  be  very  large  and 
contain  seventy-two  members.  In  the  other  colonies 
the  council  was  seldom  composed  of  more  than  ten 
or  twenty.  This  enlargement  of  the  council  had 
appeared  all  through  the  drafts,  where  it  was  some- 
times enlarged  into  an  upper  house  of  landed  pro- 
prietors, or  even  into  an  hereditary  house  of  lords. 
Even  as  finally  arranged,  it  was  more  of  an  upper 
house  of  legislature  than  a  governor's  council,  and 
it  was  given  the  sole  right  of  originating  legislation. 
The  assembly  of  the  people  could  merely  accept  or 


CARE  WITH   THE   CONSTITUTION  AND   LAWS 

reject  its  proposals.  In  this  notion  of  developing 
the  governor's  council  into  an  upper  house  of  such 
importance  that  the  lower  house  would  be  com- 
pletely dwarfed  and  insignificant,  Penn  may  have 
been  influenced  by  the  constitution  which  his  college- 
mate  Locke  prepared  for  the  government  of  the 
Carolinas. 

It  was  not  a  successful  device,  this  excessive  en- 
largement of  the  council  or  upper  house.  It  worked 
badly  in  practice,  and  was  so  completely  abolished 
that  during  most  of  the  colonial  period  Pennsyl- 
vania's form  of  government  provided  for  no  gov- 
ernor's council  at  all,  and  no  upper  house  of  the 
legislature. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  this  constitution  of  Penn's, 
after  all  the  pains  he  had  taken  with  it,  was  an  un- 
usually good  one.  Most  of  its  essential  qualities 
were  not  different  from  those  of  other  colonial  gov- 
ernments in  America,  and  where  they  were  different, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  governor's  council  or  upper 
house,  it  was  not  for  the  better.  His  governor's 
council,  which  had  the  extraordinary  privilege  of 
originating  legislation,  and  was  the  most  important 
legislative  body,  had  also  attached  to  it  the  execu- 
tive functions  of  guarding  the  peace  and  safety,  lay- 
ing out  towns,  modelling  public  buildings,  inspecting 
the  treasury,  and  establishing  schools.  Such  a  con- 
fusion of  legislative  and  executive  powers  was  even 
in  that  time  a  monstrosity  in  politics. 

His  constitution  had  in  it,  however,  some  interest- 
ing provisions.  It  was  the  first  constitution  which 
provided  a  method  for  its  own  alteration  and  amend- 
15  ~  225 


1/ 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

%  ment  This  was  quite  an  advanced  thought  Locke 
had  provided  that  his  Carolina  constitution  should 
never  be  altered,  and  other  constitutions  and  char- 
ters were  silent  on  the  subject.  But  all  American 
frames  of  government  are  now  like  Penn's,  and  con- 
tain a  provision  for  their  orderly  amendment  without 
violence  or  revolution. 

His  method  of  impeachment,  by  which  the  lower 
house  was  to  bring  the  impeachment,  and  the  upper 
house  to  try  it,  was  also  new  in  American  govern- 
ments, and  is  now  universal  among  them.  He  was 
also  the  first  person  to  lay  down  the  principle  that 
any  law  which  violated  the  constitution  should  be 
void.  Constitution-makers  had  been  much  troubled 
to  provide  a  method  to  protect  their  constitutions 
from  violation,  and  had  suggested  various  compli- 
cated devices.  But  Penn  was  the  first  one  to  hit 
upon  the  foundation  or  first  step  in  the  true  principle, 
now  the  universal  law  in  the  United  States,  that  the 
unconstitutional  law  is  void.  If  he  had  taken  the 
next  step,  and  provided  that  the  courts  had  power 
to  declare  such  a  law  void  whenever  it  came  before 
them  in  a  case,  he  would  have  been  the  inventor  of 
the  complete  system  as  we  now  have  it.  But  this 
step  of  declaring  such  power  in  the  courts  was  not 
made  until  one  hundred  years  after  his  time.* 

/y       Taken  altogether,  this  constitution  was  very  charac- 
C   teristic  of  Penn.     It  was  an  earnest,  zealous  attempt 

J  to  attain  the  best  sort  of  government ;  but,  as  often 

♦  For  a  full  discussion  of  these  provisions  in  Penn's  constitution, 
see  "The  Evolution  of  the  Constitution,"  pp.  60,  184, 

226 


y 


CARE  WITH   THE   CONSTITUTION  AND   LAWS 

happened  with  him,  some  of  its  idealism  was  not  suc- 
cessful ;  and  yet  in  the  end,  when  all  was  said  and 
done,  his  untiring  energy  had  furnished  some  ideas 
and  principles  of  permanent  value. 

The  final  draft  of  the  constitution  was  dated  April 
25,  1682,  and  was  agreed  to  by  Penn  and  some  of 
those  who  were  to  go  out  to  the  province.  They 
also,  a  few  weeks  later,  agreed  upon  certain  laws 
which,  with  the  constitution,  they  intended  to  take 
out  to  Pennsylvania  and  propose  to  the  people  there 
for  their  acceptance.  These  laws  contained  many  of 
the  advanced  ideas  which  had  for  many  years  been 
animating  the  Quakers. 

All  prisons  were  to  be  work-houses  and  places  for 
reformation  and  cleanliness,  instead  of  the  pestilen- 
tial dungeons  of  idleness,  dirt,  and  increasing  vice 
in  which  the  Quakers  had  suffered  so  much  wretched- 
ness and  death  in  England.  An  attempt  was  made 
to  abolish  lawyers  and  lessen  litigation  by  providing 
that  every  one  might  plead  his  own  cause,  and,  as  the 
ancient  adage  has  it,  have  a  fool  for  a  client.  Trial 
by  jury  was  carefully  established,  but  no  oaths  were 
required.  All  children  were  to  be  taught  some  use- 
ful trade,  a  practice  which  the  Quakers  had  long 
advocated,  but  had  not  been  able  to  enforce  among 
all  their  members,  and  they  were  equally  unsuccess- 
ful in  enforcing  it  by  law  in  Pennsylvania. 

Religious  liberty  was,   of  course,  established   in  ^ 
these  laws  ;  but  only  in  the  sense  in  which  it  was 
then  sometimes  understood,   and  was   confined   to 
those  who    believed  in   God.       Atheists  were    not 
within  the  sphere  of  its  protection.     Similarly,  no 

227 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

one  could  hold  office  in  the  government  unless  he 
professed  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  This  was  not  the 
first  establishment  of  liberty  of  conscience  in  the 
colonies.  It  had  been  established  by  the  charter 
of  Rhode  Island  in  1663,  in  East  Jersey  in  1655, 
by  Locke's  Carolina  constitution  of  1669,  and  in 
West  Jersey  in  1677,  and  rather  more  liberally  and 
broadly  than  Penn  established  it,  for  it  was  not  con- 
fined to  those  who  believed  in  God. 

The  Quakers  were  very  much  opposed  to  capital 
punishment,  especially  the  wholesale  capital  punish- 
ment for  minor  offences  prevailing  at  that  time  in 
England.  Accordingly,  we  find  in  Penn's  code  only 
treason  and  murder  deemed  worthy  of  death  ;  and 
the  property  of  murderers,  instead  of  being  forfeited 
to  the  state,  was  divided  among  the  next  of  kin  of 
the  sufferer  and  of  the  criminal. 

Penn's  biographers  have  usually  given  him  the 
credit  of  all  these  very  advanced  ideas ;  but  it  is 
hardly  just,  for  they  were  the  ideas  of  the  Quakers, 
and  he  was  merely  trying  to  put  them  in  practice^ 

There  were  also  laws  which  reflected  the  puritan 
feeling  among  the  Quakers.  Cursing,  swearing, 
drunkenness,  health-drinking,  cards,  dice,  gambling, 
stage-plays,  scolding,  and  lying  in  conversation,  were 
strictly  prohibited. 


2^ 


XVI  ' 

FIRST   VISIT   TO   THE    PROVINCE 

At  last,  in  the  summer  of  1682,  a  little  more  than 
a  year  after  he  had  received  his  charter,  he  was 
ready  to  start  for  Pennsylvania.  For  his  wife  and 
children  he  left  a  letter  of  farewell,  which  is  the 
most  beautiful,  perhaps  the  only  really  beautiful, 
thing  he  ever  wrote.  The  diffuseness  and  dulness 
of  his  usual  style  disappear  entirely  in  this  letter. 
He  does  not  labor  to  prove  dry  propositions,  but 
speaks  with  a  reality  and  directness  which  seem  to 
show  that  his  nature  was  strongest  and  at  its  best 
when  aroused  by  tenderness  and  affection.  From 
several  passages  in  the  letter  one  may  infer  that  he 
had  learned  from  experience  that  this  tender  side 
was  also  his  weak  side,  and  that  he  saw  the  danger 
of  wasting  one's  energy  in  friendships. 

"  Guard  against  encroaching  friendships.  Keep  them  at  arm's  end : 
for  it  is  giving  away  our  power — age  and  self  too,  into  the  possession 
of  another ;  and  that  which  might  seem  engaging  in  the  beginning 
may  prove  a  yoke  and  burden  too  hard  and  heavy  in  the  end. 
Wherefore  keep  dominion  over  thyself,  and  let  thy  children,  good 
meetings,  and  Friends  be  the  pleasure  of  thy  life." 

Another  passage  is  of  interest,  not  only  for  the 
natural  way  in  which  it  is  expressed,  but  because  it 
gives  us  a  glimpse  of  his  wife,  the  pretty  Guli  whom 
he  had  married  with  so  much  love  ten  years  before. 

229 


^ 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

"  Therefore  honor  and  obey  her,  my  dear  chjldren,  as  your  mother 
and  your  father's  love  and  delight ;  nay  love  her  too,  for  she  loved 
your  father  with  a  deep  and  upright  love,  choosing  him  above  all  her 
many  suitors ;  and  though  she  be  of  a  delicate  constitution  and  noble 
spirit,  yet  she  descended  to  the  utmost  tenderness  and  care  for  you, 
performing  the  plainest  acts  of  service  to  you  in  your  infancy,  as  a 
mother  and  a  nurse  too.  I  charge  you  before  the  Lord,  honor  and 
obey,  love  and  cherish,  your  dear  mother." 

From  this  letter  we  learn  also  that  Penn  was  at 
that  time  already  in  debt  He  lived  well,  and  his 
family  and  the  public  projects  in  which  he  was  ab- 
sorbed consumed  more  than  his  rather  large  income. 
So  he  begs  his  wife  to  be  saving.  "  Remember,"  he 
says,  "thy  mother's  example,  when  thy  father's 
public  spiritedness  had  wasted  his  estate  (which  is 
my  case)." 

-^^On  the  30th  of  August  he  embarked  at  Deal,  on 
board  the  "Welcome,"  with  about  one  hundred  pas- 
sengers. About  eight  weeks  afterwards,  on  the  24th 
,  of  October,  he  was  within  the  capes  of  the  Delaware. 
\lt  had  been  a  long  voyage,  and,  as  not  infrequently 
jhappened  in  those  days,  small-pox  broke  out  among 
khe  passengers,  and  thirty  died  at  sea. 

Three  days  more  were  required  for  the  "Wel- 
come" to  beat  up  the  river  to  New  Castle,  then  the 
,  capital,  so  to  speak,  or  most  important  village  on  the 
I  Delaware.  It  was  within  the  territory  the  Duke  of 
York  had  given  him,  and  he  took  possession  of  it 
by  the  delivery  of  "  turf  and  twig  and  water,"  as  the 
ancient  feudal  form  prescribed. 

On  the  29th  of  the  month  he  sailed  still  farther 
up  the  river  to  Upland,  where  Markham  was  await- 
ing him,  and  this  village  was  within  the  province  of 

230 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  THE  PROVINCE 

Pennsylvania.  Soon  after  landing  at  Upland  he 
turned  to  his  friend  Pearson,  saying  that  this  was  a 
memorable  event,  and  asking  him  to  name  the  town ; 
and  Pearson  gave  it  the  name  of  his  native  city, 
Chester,  which  it  still  retains. 
\  t^^  have  very  few  details,  and  those  mostly  by 
Uradition,  of  Penn's  doings  at  this  time7\and  he  was 
not  the  sort  of  man  to  write  detailed  descriptions  of 
his  pleasures.  But  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how 
these  first  few  weeks,  and,  indeed,  the  whole  of  this 
first  visit  to  his  province,  could  have  been  anything 
but  unalloyed  delight. 

The  Delaware  was  not  a  river  of  grand  panoramic 
scenery,  like  the  Hudson,  but  it  had  a  soft  beauty  of 
its  own  very  attractive  to  some  minds ;  and  the 
complete  wildness  on  every  side,  with  the  immense 
quantities  of  game,  could  hardly  fail  to  interest  a 
man  like  Penn.  Its  low  shores  on  both  sides  were 
mostly  open  meadows  covered  with  rich  grass  or 
reeds,  and  many  of  them  were  overflowed  at  every 
high  tide.  Strips  or  points  of  moderately  high  land 
covered  with  forest  trees  came  down  through  these 
meadows  here  and  there  to  the  water's  edge.  Nu- 
merous large  creeks  stretched  backward  into  the 
wild  interior,  tempting  the  explorer  at  every  turn. 
At  low  water  the  river  was  within  its  bed,  but  at 
high  tide  it  shot  outward  on  every  side  over  the 
meadows,  making  vast  lakes  and  bays  bordered  by 
the  nodding  reeds  and  the  points  of  forest. 

The  charm  of  the  landscape  was  the  deep,  rich 
green  of  the  grass,  the  dark,  soft  soil,  where  every- 
thing seemed  fat  and  fertile,  and  where  animal  life 

231 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

swarmed  abundantly.  When  Penn  arrived,  at  the 
end  of  October,  the  wild  ducks  must  have  begun  to 
arrive  on  those  waters.  Philadelphia  sportsmen 
would  now  say  that  he  was  too  late  for  the  close  of 
the  rail-bird  season,  and  had  also  missed  the  reed- 
birds,  which  a  month  or  so  before  could  have  been 
seen  on  the  marshes  in  countless  millions,  rising  in 
great  flocks  which  crossed  the  sun  like  a  cloud. 

There  were,  indeed,  at  that  time  prodigious  quan- 
tities of  game  in  the  air,  on  the  shore,  and  on  the 
surface  of  the  water.  The  fish  swam  innumerable 
not  only  in  the  river,  but  up  every  creek.  The  reach 
of  the  river  for  many  miles  above  and  below  Chester, 
where  he  had  stopped,  was  a  famous  feeding-ground 
for  the  plover  and  snipe,  as  well  as  ducks  and  all 
other  sorts  of  birds.  In  those  days  there  were  great 
flocks  of  white  cranes  on  the  meadows,  which  are 
described  as  rising  in  clouds  when  a  boat  approached 
the  shore  ;  and  in  winter  there  were  the  wild  swans, 
which  have  long  since  been  driven  far  to  the  south. 

The  woods  back  from  the  shore  were  full  of  deer, 
which  the  Indians  brought  in  every  day  and  sold  for 
a  few  pipefuls  of  tobacco.  Markham  had  written 
to  him,  "  Partridges  I  am  cloyed  with ;  we  catch 
them  by  hundreds  at  a  time."  Wild  turkeys,  Mark- 
ham  said,  were  also  in  great  abundance,  and  veiy 
easy  to  shoot  The  elk,  which  in  our  time  have 
never  been  heard  of  east  of  the  Mississippi,  were 
then  numerous  in  Eastern  Pennsylvania. 

The  dikes  which  now  protect  many  of  these 
meadows  from  daily  overflow  had  not  then  been 
constructed,  although  it  is  possible  that  the  Swedish 

232 


FIRST   VISIT  TO  THE   PROVINCE 

and  Dutch  settlers  that  were  scattered  along  the 
shores  had  constructed  a  few,  or  dug  a  few  ditches. 
These  Swedes  and  Dutch,  with  a  few  English,  had 
for  half  a  century  been  enjoying  a  very  prosperous 
existence,  with  their  houses  on  the  points  of  upland 
and  their  cattle  feeding  on  the  meadows  or  roaming 
back  into  the  woods,  which  were  then,  it  is  said,  very 
free  from  undergrowth.  They  had  made  no  attempt 
to  penetrate  the  interior  forests.  Their  whole  life 
was  centred  on  the  river  with  what  seemed  to  them 
its  inexhaustible  supply  of  game  and  fish,  and  the 
rich  grass  of  its  open  meadows,  where  there  were  no 
trees  to  be  felled. 

From  a  letter  he  afterwards  wrote  to  the  Free  So- 
ciety of  Traders,  we  know  that  Penn  was  interested 
in  all  these  things.  He  must  have  been  very  busy 
asking  questions  and  listening  to  glowing  descrip- 
tions, as  he  looked  out  over  the  river  with  the  mel- 
low tints  of  early  autumn  on  its  shores  and  its  green 
meadows  changing  into  lakes  at  every  tide.  It  is 
impossible  to  suppose  that  his  imagination  was  not 
fired  at  the  thought  that  the  river  was  his  and  also 
the  dark  unpenetrated  green  forest  for  three  hun- 
dred miles  to  the  westward. 

He  had  said  in  his  letter  to  his  children,  "  Be  sure 
to  see  with  your  own  eyes  and  hear  with  your  own 
ears,"  and  he  was  prepared  to  follow  this  precept 
He  would  see  Pennsylvania  with  his  own  eyes. 

His  first  excursion  from  Chester  we  know  of  only 
by  tradition.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  it, 
and  the  excursion  must  necessarily  have  been  made. 
He  was  rowed,  it  is  said,  in  a  barge  up  the  river  past 

233 


V 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

old  Tinicum,  where  the  Swedish  governor  had  lived, 
and  where  the  yacht  clubs  now  anchor  their  white 
fleets,  past  that  point  which  we  call  League  Island, 
where  the  war- vessels  lie,  and  round  the  great  bend 
across  the  Horseshoe  shoals,  until  the  river  grew 
narrow  and  deeper,  and  against  the  western  bank 
it  became  very  deep  close  to  the  shore,  which  was 
the  only  really  large  and  good  piece  of  high  land 
with  a  deep-water  frontage.  The  shore  was  covered 
with  pines  and  large  hard-wood  trees,  chestnut,  oak, 
and  walnut,  with  large  quantities  of  laurel,  on  the 
leaves  of  which  the  deer  were  fond  of  feeding,  and 
from  the  wood  of  which  the  Indians  made  spoons. 
The  bank  was  steep  and  high,  but  at  one  point  a 
stream  flowed  through  it,  deep  at  its  mouth,  with  a 
sandy  beach,  where  a  settler  had  already  built  his 
cabin.  This,  said  his  commissioners,  is  the  spot  we 
have  selected  for  your  city. 

He  landed  at  the  mouth  of  the  little  stream  ;  Dock 
Creek  it  was  called,  and  it  now  flows  in  the  sewer 
beneath  Dock  Street.  He  was  delighted  with  the 
situation,  and  readily  consented  that  his  city  should 
be  there.  Some  settlers  and  Indians  were  at  the 
landing,  it  is  said,  to  meet  him.  He  sat  down  with 
the  Indians,  so  the  story  goes,  and  ate  their  roasted 
acorns  and  hominy.  Afterwards,  when  to  amuse 
him  they  showed  him  some  of  their  sports,  he  re- 
newed his  college  days  by  joining  them  in  a  jumping 
match,  and,  much  to  their  surprise,  outdid  them  all. 

His  commissioners  had  already  planned  the  town, 
and  had  probably  marked  out  some  of  the  streets  on 
the  ground  ;  but  he  did  not  like  the  names  they  had 

234 


FIRST  VISIT  TO   THE   PROVINCE 

given  ;  so  he  changed  Pool  to  Walnut  Street  for  the 
sake  of  the  trees  that  grew  near  it,  and  in  the  same  l, 
way  Winn  was  changed  to  Chestnut  Street ;  changes  S 
which  we  cannot  say  were  good  ones.     The  name    ^ 
High  Street,  which  he  gave  to  the  present  Market 
Street,  was,  however,  a  pleasant  name,  and  should 
have  been  retained. 

He  planned  the  square  at  Broad  and  Market 
Streets,  now  occupied  by  the  City  Hall,  but  in- 
stead of  its  present  size,  he  intended  that  it  should 
contain  ten  acres.  He  planned  also  the  other  four 
squares  known  as  Washington,  Franklin,  Logan,  and 
Rittenhouse.  Ia.-the  main,  the  city  is  to-day  as  he  ^^ 
intended  it  should  be.  He  intended  that  there 
should  be  a  wide  boulevard  along  the  Delaware, 
and  we  have  now  returned  to  that  plan.  But  he 
made  the  streets  entirely  too  narrow  for  the  modern 
citizens,  who  suffer  much  from  that  part  of  his 
design  ;  and,  for  the  sake  of  what  he  thought  was 
modern  and  convenient,  he  laid  out  the  whole  town 
on  the  monotonous  chequer-board  system,  of  most 
dismal  effect,  very  depressing  to  the  people,  and  a 
barrier  to  all  attempts  at  architectural  beauty. 

We  have  not  the  full  details  of  Penn's  activity  at    cv 
this  time,  and  even  if  we  had  them,  it  would  be    ^- 
tedious  to  give  them  all.     We  know,  however,  that 
after  seeing  that  the  work  on  his  city  was  well  under 
way,  he  went  to  New  York  "to  pay,"  it  is  said,  "his  \ 
duty  to  the  duke  by  visiting  his  province  ;"  but  also, 
no  doubt,  to  see  the  country.      He  passed  through 
the  Jerseys,  visited   Long  Island,   and   everywhere 
preached  to  any  Quakers  he  found.     On  his  return 

235 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 


(i 


it  has  been  supposed  that  he  made  his  famous  treaty 
with  the  Indians  under  the  Elm  at  Kensington ;  but 
this  is  now  believed  to  be  a  mistake.  The  treaty,  if 
there  was  one,  was  made  in  the  following  year. 

We  know,  however,  that  on  his  return  he  worked 
hard  getting  his  laws  and  constitution  approved. 
They  had  been  agreed  to,  provisionally,  in  England, 
and  under  them  writs  were  issued  for  the  election  of 
an  assembly,  which  met  December  4,  at  Chester. 
The  code  of  laws  already  described  was  passed,  and 
was  ever  after  known  as  the  Great  Law.  An  act 
was  also  passed,  called  an  Act  of  Union,  annexing  to 
Pennsylvania  the  land  given  him  by  the  Duke  of 
York,  now  known  as  the  State  of  Delaware,  and 
then  called  "The  Territories"  or  "the  three  lower 
counties."  The  constitution  was  also  passed,  but  the 
Provincial  Council  and  the  General  Assembly,  being 
ridiculously  large,  were  quickly  amended  by  the  Act 
of  Settlement,  as  it  was  called,  which  made  the 
Council  consist  of  eighteen  members  instead  of 
seventy-two,  and  the  Assembly  of  thirty-six  instead 
of  two  hundred. 

Then  Penn  started  for  Maryland  to  discuss  with 
Lord  Baltimore  about  the  disputed  boundary,  which 
remained  disputed  for  the  next  seventy  years.  Penn 
was  accompanied  by  his  council,  and  Lord  Balti- 
more also  had  his  retinue,  each  trying  to  impress 
the  other  with  his  dignity  and  importance.  They 
met  at  West  River,  and  the  fine  clothes  and  pom- 
pous arrangements  of  those  times  must  have  made 
a  showy  and  pretty  scene  in  the  wilderness.  Lord 
Baltimore's  letters  to  Penn  are  very  grand  and  em- 

236 


FIRST  VISIT   TO   THE   PROVINCE 

peror-like.  Penn's  are  bluff  and  plain.  He  seems 
to  have  crossed  Chesapeake  Bay  to  the  eastern  shore 
and  visited  a  Quaker  meeting  on  the  Choptank, 
and  on  his  return  he  settled  down  for  the  winter  at 
Chester.  I  am  aware  that  it  has  been  said  that  he 
passed  the  winter  at  Philadelphia  in  the  Letitia 
House.  But  his  letters  are  dated  at  Chester  as  late 
as  February,  and  this  seems  to  me  conclusive. 

The  wild  pigeons  are  described  as  migrating  at 
that  time  in  such  numbers  that  they  almost  darkened 
the  air.  They  often  flew  so  low  and  were  so  tame 
that  the  colonists  knocked  them  down  with  sticks 
and  stones  ;  and  those  that  were  not  immediately 
used  were  salted  for  the  winter.  Penn,  no  doubt, 
saw  these  great  pigeon  flights  that  autumn. 

It  would  be  interesting  if  we  knew  more  of  the 
details  of  his  life  during  that  winter  on  the  river 
shore  at  Chester.  We  should  like  to  know  what 
the  ice  did  that  year  as  the  tide  forced  it  in  great 
masses  to  and  fro  ;  how  he  and  the  few  families 
round  him  passed  the  time.  They  must  all  have 
been  living  in  rude  cabins,  with  the  forest  behind 
them  and  the  drifting  ice  in  front.  It  is  strange  that 
those  people  who  for  four  or  five  months  were  with 
him  in  the  intimacy  of  long  winter  evenings  in  a 
wilderness  have  left  no  account  of  his  sayings  and 
doings.  But  most  of  them  I  suppose  were  Quakers, 
and  to  record  such  things  might  have  been  thought 
vain. 

We  know,  however,  that  he  was  enjoying  him- 
self, for  he  writes  to  England  in  high  spirits  of  his 
travels,  the  wonders  of  the  country,  its  game  and 

237 


7 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

fish,  the  abundance  of  provisions,  the  clear  air,  the 
twenty-three  ships  that  had  arrived  so  swiftly  that 
few  had  taken  longer  than  six  weeks,  and  with  such 
good  luck  that  only  three  were  infected  with  the 
small-pox. 

"  O  how  sweet,"  he  says,  "  is  the  quiet  of  these  parts,  freed  from 
the  anxious  and  troublesome  solicitations,  hurries,  and  perplexities 
of  woful  Europe !" 

Simple  nature,  he  thinks,  is  better  than  base  art, 
and  he  expresses  the  desire  he  often  had  afterwards 
of  settling  with  his  family  in  his  province. 

"  I  like  it  so  well  that  a  plentiful  estate,  and  a  great  acquaintance 
on  the  other  side,  have  no  charms  to  remove ;  my  family  being  once 
fixed  with  me,  and  if  no  other  thing  occur,  I  am  like  to  be  an 
adopted  American." 

In  another  letter  we  find  that  he  was  under  great 
expense,  spending  money  lavishly  in  forwarding  his 
enterprise.  He  did  it  all  for  the  sake  of  the  people 
of  his  faith,  and  the  province,  he  says,  is  now  in  their 
hands. 

•*  Through  my  travail,  faith,  and  patience  it  came.  If  Friends 
here  keep  to  God  in  the  justice,  mercy,  equity,  and  fear  of  the  Lord 
their  enemies  will  be  their  footstool ;  if  not,  their  heirs,  and  my  heirs 
too,  will  lose  all,  and  desolation  will  follow." 

He  sent  presents  of  beaver  and  other  furs  to  the 
king  and  the  Duke  of  York ;  and  he  wrote  letters 
to  important  people.*-  As  spring  opened  he  renewed 
his  activity.  He  was  agalrT  superintending  the  build- 
ing of  Philadelphia,*  and  probably  made  excursions 
there  from  Chester!  Soon,  I  have  no  doubt,  he 
went  to  live  in  the  Letitia  House,  which  had  been 

238 


^ 


^ 


FIRST  VISIT   TO   THE   PROVINCE 

built  for  him  in  the  town,  for  in  the  summer  hisl 
letters  are  dated  there. 

This  house  his  commissioners  had  placed  for  him, 
as  he  requested,  facing  the  river.     It  was  on  Front 
Street  south  of  the  present  Market  Street,  in  the 
centre  of  a  lot  which  ran  back  to  Second  Street, 
along  Market,  and  included  about  half  the  block. 
There  were  no  houses  then  between  Front  Street 
and  the  river-shore.     The  house  was  of  brick,  and 
is  still  preserved,  as  we  suppose,  but  has  been  re- 
moved to  Fairmount  Park.     It  was  always  known  as) 
the  Letitia   House  because  he  afterwards  gave  it,  I 
with  its  large  lot,  to  his  daughter.     In  it,  I  have  no 
doubt,  many  of  the  early  meetings  of  the  Provincial 
Council  were  held,  and  it  may  be  considered  the  firsjL, 
State-house  of  the  province. 

Ships  were  rapidly  arriving  with  immigrants. 
Some  brought  with  them  the  frames  of  houses 
ready  to  set  up.  They  lived  in  huts  of  bark  and 
turf  while  they  were  building  their  houses,  and  some 
dug  caves  in  the  river-bank,  which  then  was  quite 
steep.  It  must  have  been  an  interesting  scene,  with 
the  handsome,  accomplished  young  proprietor — for 
he  was  then  only  thirty-eight  years  old — moving 
about  among  the  people  and  suggesting  plans  for 
their  houses,  while  all  were  stimulated  by  the  novelty 
of  the  enterprise  and  the  freshness  and  excitement 
of  the  wilderness. 

There  were  none  of  the  severe  privations  and  dan- 
gerous hardships,  none  of  the  sickness  and  famine, 
which  we  read  of  as  attending  the  first  settlements 
of  Virginia  and  Massachusetts.     The  woods  close 

239 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

round  the  town  were  described  as  swarming  with 
animal  life,  not  only  then,  but  for  many  years  after- 
wards. There  was  abundance  of  everything.  It 
was  really  a  sort  of  picnic  or  camping-out  party  to 
found  a  great  city.  Many  of  the  houses  had  stone 
cellars,  and  were  built  of  both  brick  and  stone,  for 
stone  was  abundant  and  bricks  were  easily  made 
from  the  clay  beds  which  underlay  the  soil.  This 
immediate  building  of  brick  and  stone  shows  the 
ease  of  life  and  the  quick  prosperity. 

Curious  stories  have  come  down  by  tradition  of 
the  pleasant  happenings  to  these  people  who  were 
enjoying  an  outing  in  huts  and  caves  in  the  river- 
bank  while  they  were  building  their  substantial 
houses.  A  woman  was  seen  sitting  at  the  door 
of  her  cave  and  allowing  a  snake  to  share  her  bowl 
of  porridge,  while  she  called  it  pet  names.  Another 
woman,  told  by  her  husband  to  prepare  dinner 
while  he  continued  to  work  on  the  house,  went 
away  sad,  wondering  what  she  would  get.  Then 
she  reflected  how  foolish  she  was,  for  was  she  not 
enjoying  the  complete  religious  liberty  she  had  come 
for,  and  when  she  reached  their  cave  she  found  her 
cat  had  brought  in  a  rabbit,  which  she  served  dressed 
as  an  English  hare.  Her  name  was  Morris,  and  her 
family  down  to  recent  times  is  said  to  have  pre- 
served a  silver  box  they  had  had  made  with  the  cat 
and  rabbit  engraved  on  it. 

A  few  of  the  Germans  in  whom  Penn  had  been 

interested  during  his  travels  in  their  country  had 

/already  arrived.     Their  leader,  Pastorius,  a  heavily 

^  learned  man  after  the  German  manner,  was  living  in 

240 


i      n' 


FIRST  VISIT  TO   THE   PROVINCE 

one  of  the  caves  in  the  river-bank,  and  Penn  was 
much  amused  by  the  Latin  motto  which  he  put  up 
over  the  door  of  his  abode  :  "  Parva  domus,  sed 
amica  bonis,  procul  este  profani." 

In  March  Penn  had  the  Assembly  meet  again,, 
and  the  constitution  was  further  amended.  An  act 
was  passed  creating  peace-makers  to  prevent  law- 
suits, and  the  session  of  twenty-one  days  was  spent 
in  revising  the  old  laws  and  enacting  new  ones.  This 
must  have  been  a  busy  time  with  Penn,  for  he  felt 
bound  to  use  his  influence  in  all  these  proceedings. 
His  affability,  fairness,  and  frankness  of  manner 
seems  in  these  first  days  of  his  colony  to  have  wonj 
the  complete  devotion  of  the  people.  The  Assem- 
bly voted  him  the  proceeds  of  all  future  taxes  on 
certain  exports  and  imports,  which  he  generously 
declined  for  the  present.  But  if  he  had  known  the 
expense  and  losses  that  were  in  store  for  him  he 
would  have  retained  this  golden  opportunity  of  a 
sure  income.  The  Assembly  sharply  took  advantage 
of  his  generosity,  repealed  the  law,  and  could  never 
again  be  persuaded  to  repass  it  Twenty  years 
afterwards  he  wrote  of  this  lost  opportunity  with  the 
most  poignant  regret. 

He  presided  over  the  meetings  of  the  Provincial 
Council,  which  seems  to  have  met  in  the  new  town, 
Philadelphia  It  frequently  sat  as  a  court,  and  Penn 
charged  the  jury.  One  of  the  trials  was  for  witch- 
craft among  the  Swedes,  and  the  case  has  been  often 
noticed  in  colonial  history  for  the  quick  way  in  ^ 
which  the  ancient  superstition  was  disposed  of  and 
prevented  from  running  riot  among  the  people  as  it 
i6  241 


1 


■) 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

^  did  a  few  years  afterwards  in  Massachusetts.  We 
have  not  Penn's  charge  to  the  jury,  but  it  is  highly 
probable  that  he  charged  against  the  delusion,  for 
the  jury  returned  a  verdict  of  "  guilty  of  the  com- 
mon fame  of  being  a  witch  ;  but  not  guilty  in  manner 
and  form  as  she  stands  indicted." 
y  In  June  of  this  year,  1683,  it  is  probable  that  he 
made  the  treaty  with  the  Indians  which  has  become 
so  famous.  There  were  two  treaties  or  purchases  of 
land  made  with  them  that  month,  one  on  the  23d, 
and  one  on  the  25th,  and  there  was  also  a  third  one 
on  July  14.  It  was  probably  the  one  on  June  23 
which  has  aroused  the  tradition  on  which  so  much 
ti.  0^  imagination  has  been  expended.     The  document  or 

>>^  \xr3^  '\  words  of  the  treaty  have  not  been  preserved.  In 
fact,  the  treaty,  so  called,  was  like  most  of  Penn's 
'  dealings  with  the  Indians,  merely  a  purchase  of  land 
^^  which  certain  things  were  said.  He  thought 
nothing  of  it  at  the  time,  for  he  had  adopted  the 
principle  of  dealing  fairly  with  the  Indians  and  pay- 
ing them  a  full  and  fair  price  for  all  their  land  as  he 
or  his  province  wanted  it ;  and  he  carried  out  this 
principle  in  all  his  negotiations  with  them. 
^"The  usual  description  of  this  treaty  as  a  formal 
function,  at  which  the  chiefs  assembled  under  the 
great  elm  at  Kensington  on  the  river-shore  just 
above  Philadelphia,  Penn  appearing  with  a  sky-blue 
sash  around  his  waist,  and  all  making  wonderful 
speeches,  conscious  that  they  were  doing  a  great 
thing,  is  all  pure  imagination  and  fiction.  There  is 
no  record  or  proof  whatever  of  anything  of  the 
kind.     The   speech    usually   assigned    to    Penn   on 

242 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  THE   PROVINCE 

that  occasion  is  now  known  to  have  been  made 
twenty  years  afterwards.  If  such  a  treaty  was 
made  as  is  supposed  to  have  been  made,  it  was  a 
mere  business  transaction  in  the  purchase  of  land, 
hke  many  that  were  made  about  that  period  and 
afterwards. 

Benjamin  West's  painting  of  the  scene,  which  has 
been  so  often  reproduced,  is  largely  responsible  for 
the  growth  of  this  treaty  myth.  Writers  have  taken 
the  picture  as  a  fact  and  written  up  to  it.  Histori- 
cally considered,  the  picture  is  all  wrong.  West 
merely  guessed  or  supposed  that  there  had  been 
such  a  scene.  Penn,  who  at  that  time,  according 
to  all  the  accounts  we  have  of  him,  was  a  vigorous 
young  man  of  thirty-eight,  is  represented  as  fat, 
short,  and  old ;  and  he  and  his  companions  are 
dressed  in  clothes  which  were  not  worn  until  nearly 
half  a  century  afterwards.  ^ 

On  one  point,  however,  there  is  no  question.  The 
Indians  always  retained  a  distinct  tradition  of  a 
treaty  of  some  sort  with  Penn,  or  rather  of  some 
promises  he  had  made  which  he  always  kept ;  and^ 
his  keeping  them  was  the  great  point  It  is  sup- 
posed that  Penn  refers  to  these  promises  in  his  letter 
to  the  Free  Society  of  Traders,  written  August  i6, 
of  that  year,  1683,  about  two  months  after  the  land  | 

purchase  of  June  23.  / 

**  When  the  purchase  was  agreed,  great  promises  passed  between 
us,  of  kindness  and  good  neighbourhood,  and  that  the  Indians  and 
English  must  live  in  love  as  long  as  the  sun  gave  light :  which 
done,  another  made  a  speech  to  the  Indians,  in  the  name  of  all  the 
Sachamakan,  or  kings,  first  to  tell  them  what  was  done ;  next,  to 

243 


.-.^ 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

charge  and  command  them  to  love  the  Christians,  and  particularly 
live  in  peace  with  me  and  the  people  under  my  government.  That 
many  governors  had  been  in  the  river,  but  that  no  governor  had 
come  himself  to  live  and  stay  here  before ;  and  having  now  such  an 
one  that  had  treated  them  well,  they  should  never  do  him  or  his  any 
wrong.  At  every  sentence  of  which  they  shouted,  and  said.  Amen, 
in  their  way." 

We  have  the  records  of  speeches  made  by  the 
Indians  at  treaties  many  years  afterwards,  in  which 
they  refer  to  these  promises  made  of  old  by  Penn  ; 
and  their  description  of  the  promises  closely  re- 
sembles what  Penn  describes  in  his  letter  to  the  So- 
ciety of  Traders.  The  Indians  said  that  they  often 
assembled  in  the  v^oods  and  spread  out  a  blanket, 
on  which  they  laid  all  the  words  of  Penn,  that  they 
might  go  over  them  and  refresh  their  memories. 
By  this  they  meant  that  they  laid  on  the  blanket  the 
belts  of  wampum,  each  of  which  represented  a 
clause  of  the  promises  or  treaty.  Each  belt  had 
been  originally  given  to  an  Indian,  with  the  clause 
he  was  to  remember ;  and  it  was  in  this  way  that 
they  preserved  what  civilized  nations  preserve  in 
documents. 

"^  The  substance  of  the  promises  was  merely  that  the 
Indians  were  to  be  treated  fairly  and  not  defrauded. 
There  was  nothing  wonderful  in  this.  Such  treaties 
had  been  made  before  with  Indians  and  with  savages 
of  all  sorts  from  the  dawn  of  history.  Almost  thirty 
years  before  Penn's  arrival,  when  the  Swedes  con- 
trolled the  Delaware,  their  governor.  Rising,  had  made 
a  treaty  with  the  Indians  with  similar  promises.  Soon 
afterwards  the  Quakers  of  Burlington,  New  Jersey, 
made  the  same  sort  of  treaty  of  friendship.     Penn 

244  i 


FIRST  VISIT  TO   THE  PROVINCE 

was  doing  nothing  remarkable,  nothing  which  re- 
quired a  formal  celebration  or  the  exhibition  of  him- 
self in  a  sky-blue  sash  ;  and  no  one  at  the  time 
thought  of  these  land  purchases  or  treaties  as  in  any 
way  wonderful. 

It  was  after-events  and  not  the  treaty  itself  which 
made  it  famous.  The  Indians  had  often  before  and 
often  after  heard  fair  promises.  But  Penn  kept  his, 
not  merely  in  his  own  opinion  or  in  the  opinion  of 
his  followers,  but  in  the  opinion  of  the  Indians.  As 
ten,  fifteen,  twenty,  and  thirty  years  rolled  by,  and 
the  Indians  found  every  word  of  the  treaty  fulfilled 
by  Mignon,  as  the  Delawares  called  him,  or  Onas, 
as  he  was  called  by  the  Iroquois,  the  fame  of  the  one 
white  man  and  Christian  who  could  keep  his  faith 
with  the  savage  spread  far  and  wide,  and  the  savage 
sent  it  across  the  Atlantic. 

In  France  and  on  the  continent  of  Europe  the 
great  men  and  writers  seized  upon  it  as  the  most  re- 
markable occurrence  of  the  age.  To  these  men, 
brought  up  under  Latin  Christianity  and  accustomed 
to  the  atrocities  and  horrors  inflicted  by  Cortes 
and  Pizarro  on  the  natives  of  South  America,  the 
thought  of  a  Christian  keeping  his  promise  inviolate 
for  forty  years  with  heathen  Indians  was  idealism 
realized.  It  was  like  refreshment  in  a  great  weary 
desert.  Who  was  the  man,  and  what  queer  sort  of 
Christian  was  he  that  he  kept  his  word  with  the 
heathen;  that  he  had  done  what  had  never  been 
done  before,  and  what  it  was  supposed  never  would 
be  done  ? 

Voltaire  was  delighted.  From  that  time  he  loved 
245 


\ 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

•  the  Quakers,  and  even  thought  of  going  to  Pennsyl- 
vania to  live  among  them.  Soon  he  wrote  of  the 
great  treaty  the  immortal  sentence,  **  This  was  the 
only  treaty  between  these  people  and  the  Christians 
that  was  not  ratified  by  an  oath  and  that  was  never 
broken." 

Raynal  said, — 

"  Here  it  is  the  mind  rests  with  pleasure  upon  modem  history  and 
feels  some  kind  of  compensation  for  the  disgust,  melancholy,  and 
horror  which  the  whole  of  it,  but  particularly  that  of  the  European 
settlement  in  America,  inspires." 

No  other  part  of  Penn's  career  gave  him  such 
fame,  so  wide-spread  and  so  well  deserved,  as  this. 
He  stood  alone  and  supreme,  and,  so  far  as  the 
United  States  is  concerned,  he  has  stood  alone  ever 
since.  No  one  of  us,  certainly  not  our  government 
at  Washington,  has  ever  kept  its  faith  with  the  In- 
dians for  a  stretch  of  forty  years. 

In  Penn's  case  the  period  was  even  longer  than 
that  in  the  good  results  that  followed  from  his  con- 
duct Pennsylvania  was  at  peace  with  the  Indians 
not  only  during  his  lifetime,  but  for  long  after  his 
death ;  in  fact,  for  almost  seventy-five  years,  or  until 
the  French  and  Indian  Wars,  which  began  in  1755. 
This  gave  the  province  an  enormous  advantage  over, 
the  other  colonies,  which  were  continually  harassed 
and  checked  in  their  growth  by  Indian  hostilities,  so 
that  Pennsylvania,  which  was  founded  long  after 
most  of  them,  caught  up  to  and  surpassed  nearly  all 
in  population  and  material  prosperity.  When  the 
French  war  began,  in  1755,  the  frontier  population 

246 


Hill  I  ii.'-^!a 


FIRST  VISIT  TO  THE  PROVINCE 

of  Pennsylvania  were  almost  without  weapons,  and 
so  unaccustomed  to  warfare  that  the  first  invaders 
swept  everything  before  them.* 

The  first  settlers  of  Pennsylvania,  either  because 
they  were  Quakers,  or  through  the  influence  of  Penn, 
seem  to  have  been  on  the  most  friendly  terms  with 
the  Indians.  From  the  letters  of  the  time  we  learn 
that  they  were  received  by  both  the  Swedes  and  the 
Indians  with  a  very  hearty  welcome.  Indians  meet- 
ing children  in  the  woods  directed  them  home,  that 
they  might  not  be  lost 

"  And  their  parents,  about  that  time,  going  to  the  yearly  meeting, 
and  leaving  a  young  family  at  home,  the  Indians  would  come  every 
day  to  see  that  nothing  was  amiss  among  them." 

Richard  Townsend,  one  of  the  first  settlers,  gives 
Penn  the  credit  for  this  mildness  of  the  Indians. 

"  As  our  worthy  proprietor  treated  the  Indians  with  extraordinary 
humanity,  they  became  very  civil  and  loving  to  us,  and  brought  in 
abundance  of  venison.  As  in  other  countries  the  Indians  were  exas- 
perated by  hard  treatment,  which  hath  been  the  foundation  of  much 
bloodshed,  the  contrary  treatment  here  hath  produced  their  love  and 
affection."     (Proud's  History  of  Pennsylvania,  vol.  i.  p.  229.) 

A  letter  written  by  Penn  in  the  summer  of  that 
year,  1683,  after  he  had  finished  the  land  purchases 
from  the  Indians,  reports  that  fifty  sail  of  vessels  had 
arrived  within  the  past  year,  about  eighty  houses  had 
been  built  in  Philadelphia,  and  about  three  hundred 
farms  laid  out  round  the  town.  It  is  supposed  that 
about  three  thousand  immigrants  had  arrived. 

♦  For  a  full  discussion  of  this  subject,  see  "  Pennsylvania :  Colony 
and  Commonwealth,"  chap.  vii. 

247 


> 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 


^. 


^ 


7 


r 


This  was  very  gratifying  success  /and  while  he 
as  enjoying  it,  he  was  amused  to  hear  that  in  Eng- 
land he  was  reported  to  have  died  in  his  province 
and  confessed  himself  a  Jesuit.  1  To  familiarize  him- 
self more  thoroughly  with  his  iriends,  the  Indians, 
and  with  the  resources  of  his  delightful  colony,  this 
unarmed  Quaker  made  an  extended  journey  on 
horseback  into  the  interior,  reaching,  it  is  supposed, 
the  Susquehanna  River.  In  a  printed  paper  called 
'  Proposals  for  a  Second  Settlement  in  the  Province 
of  Pennsylvania,"  now  in  the  American  Philosophical 
Society,  he  seems  to  be  describing  what  he  had  seen 
on  this  journey,  and  he  speaks  of  the  large  herds  of 
elk  on  the  Susquehanna.  He  also  seems  to  refer  to 
this  journey  in  his  "  Further  Account  of  the  Prov- 
ince," written  in  1685.  He  lived  in  the  Indians' 
wigwams,  and  learned  much  of  their  language  and 
customs.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  did  not  keep 
a  minute  journal  of  this  tour.  We  know  only,  from 
a  chance  passage  in  Oldmixon,*  that  he  went,  and 
the  time  and  length  of  his  journey  is  uncertain. 
"  He  summed  up,  however,  all  that  he  knew  of  the 
province  in  a  long  letter  to  the  Free  Society  of 
Traders,  which  was  published  and  translated  into 
several  languages.  This  society  was  a  corporation 
which  he  had  had  organized  to  encourage  settlers 
and  development ;  but  it  was  never  successful.  His 
letter,  however,  is  very  interesting.  It  shows  a  most 
keen    and    careful    observation,    and    a    passionate 


*  British   Empire  in  America,  vol.  i.  p.  161. 
Penn  in  America,  p.  132. 

248 


See  also  Back's 


FIRST   VISIT  TO   THE   PROVINCE 

fondness  for  the  province,  which  is  one  of  many 
incidents  that  convince  us  that  it  would  have  been 
much  better  if  he  had  always  lived  in  the  colony 
and  governed  it  in  person.  It  would  have  been  a 
better  commonwealth,  closer  to  his  ideals,  and  his 
personal  government  would  have  been  a  most  inter- 
esting chapter  in  human  history. 

His  descriptions  of  the  climate,  soil,  trees,  and 
various  conditions  almost  startle  the  modern  reader 
in  their  absolute  accuracy.  He  was  evidently  a 
great  lover  of  nature.  This  we  might  have  already 
inferred  from  many  of  his  maxims  and  from  his  liv- 
ing so  much  in  the  country  in  England.  But  this 
letter  to  the  Society  of  Traders  shows  a  very  ardent 
love  and  a  great  deal  of  knowledge  of  natural  things, 
which  was  not  to  be  expected  from  a  man  who  had 
spent  so  much  time  on  theology,  languages,  and  the 
biographies  of  Greeks,  Romans,  and  the  fathers  of 
the  church. 

He  describes  with  great  particularity  the  trees  and 
the  plants  which  we  find  in  the  woods  to-day.     We  \ 

learn  from  him  that  the  climate  has  not  changed,  «i?^~^ 

either  in  winter  or  in  summer.     He  tells  us  what  we         JV^ 
learn  also  from  other  sources,  and  what  surprised  ^>^^       j^ 
him  very  much,  that  the  woods  were  then  quite  open  )s^      V^ 
and  free  from  underbrush.     In  another  letter  he  says  V' 

that  a  coach  could  be  driven  through  them  for  twenty  sQ^-'' 
miles  round  Philadelphia ;  and  in  a  letter  to  Lord 
Sunderland  he  speaks  of  "many  open  spaces  that 
have  been  old  Indian  fields."  With  not  a  little 
pride,  he  tells  the  Society  of  Traders  that  the  whole 
royal  navy  could  be  laid  up  in  one  of  the  large  creeks 

249 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

that  flowed  into  his  mighty  Delaware.  He  gives 
much  space  to  the  Indians  and  their  customs,  which 
he  had  studied  minutely.  They  would  never  give 
any  trouble.  It  was  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world 
to  manage  them.  Simply  be  just  He  tells  us  of 
the  elk  and  all  the  animals  of  the  woods,  the  wild 
turkeys,  the  pheasants,  the  pigeons,  the  swans, 
brant,  ducks,  snipe,  and  curlews  in  vast  numbers ;  the 
large  oysters  down  the  bay ;  and  he  enumerates  the 
shad  and  all  the  fish  we  have  long  known  in  the  river. 
When  he  makes  his  only  mistake  it  is  not  his  own, 
but  because  he  quotes  the  report  of  others,  as  when 
he  writes,  *'Some  say  salmon  above  the  Falls."  * 

He  was  determined  to  enjoy  to  the  full  the  wild 
nature  which  he  took  so  much  pleasure  in  describing, 
and  he  had  a  country  place,  which  he  called  Penns- 
ury,  laid  out  for  himself  on  the  river  about  twenty 
miles  above  Philadelphia,  near  where  Bristol  now 
stands.  But  as  it  was  scarcely  finished  in  time  for 
him  to  live  there  during  this  visit  we  must  defer  the 
description  of  it  to  another  chapter. 

Soon  after  writing  the  letter  to  the  Society  of 
Traders  he  had  to  return  to  England.  The  most 
pressing  reason  for  his  going  seems  to  have  been  the 
controversy  with  Lord  Baltimore  about  the  Mary- 
land boundary.  They  had  failed  to  agree  on  a 
compromise,  and  the  question  must  be  argued  before 
the  Committee  of  Trades  and  Plantations  of  the 
Privy  Council.     Lord  Baltimore  had  already  set  out, 


♦  The  Falls  were  the  rapids  in  the  Delaware  where  Trenton  now 
stands. 

250 


FIRST  VISIT  TO   THE   PROVINCE 

concealing  his  departure  from  Penn  so  as  to  get  the 
start  of  him  and  make  interest  before  he  arrived. 

Penn  also  had  a  reason  for  returning  in  his  desire 
to  see  his  family  again.  He  may  possibly  have  been 
influenced  by  the  thought  that  he  ought  to  return  to 
his  old  life  of  protecting  the  Quakers  from  persecu- 
tion in  England.  He  received  from  one  of  his  old 
friends,  William  Crisp,  a  whining  letter,  such  as  over- 
good  people  sometimes  write,  telling  him  in  a  sort  of 
indirect  way  that  he  was  neglecting  the  interest  of 
truth  and  the  testimony  of  God  for  the  sake  of  gov- 
erning a  colony,  and  rather  implying  that  he  was 
seeking  his  own  selfish  interests.  — ^ 

But  Penn  had,  I  think,  too  much  sense  to  be  led 
by  anything  this  pious  goose  would  say  to  him.  In 
any  event,  he  had  to  go  home  for  the  boundary  dis- 
pute, and  leave  the  wholesome  pleasures  and  inter- 
ests of  his  province,  which  would  have  been  better 
and  always  was  the  better  for  his  immediate  presence. 
So  home  he  sailed,  August  i6,  1684,  on  a  little  ship] 
of  a  kind  called  in  those  days  a  ketch.  She  was 
not  so  slow,  however,  for  her  size  and  the  times,  for,,.* 
she  made  the  passage  in  seven  weeks. 


251 


XVII 

RETURNS  TO  ENGLAND  AND  BECOMES  A  COURTIER 

When  he  arrived  in  England  the  officious  Stephen 
Crisp  was  quick  to  inform  him  of  the  talk  among 
the  Quakers  that  he  had  sanctioned  military  pro- 
^  ceedings  in  Pennsylvania,  was  growing  very  rich, 
had  deprived  the  Swedes  of  their  land,  and  other 
tales  which  always  delight  the  gossips  of  both 
sexes.  But  Penn  took  notice  of  such  stuff  only 
•'  to  deny  it.     More  important  matters  demanded  his 

attention. 

He  found  his  people  as  hard  pressed  by  the  laws 
as  ever.  He  talked  to  the  king  and  the  duke  only 
to  find  them  sour  and  stern.  They  believed  that 
C^  the  opposition  which  made  their  government  uneasy 
came  from  dissenters  of  all  sorts,  and  they  would 
make  such  people  yield  or  break  them.  Under 
these  circumstances  Penn  found  himself  in  a  curious 
position. 

"  One  day  I  was  received  well  at  court  as  proprietor  and  governor 
of  a  province  of  the  crown  and  the  next  taken  up  at  a  meeting  by 
Hilton  and  Collingwood  and  the  third  smoakt  and  informed  of  for 
meeting  with  the  men  of  the  whig  stamp." 

In  leaving  Pennsylvania  he  had,  with  characteristic 
carelessness,  neglected  to  bring  with  him  the  most 
important  papers  in  the  boundary  case  ;  or,  rather, 
he  had  instructed  one  of  his  servants  to  bring  them, 

252 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

and  neglected  to  see  that  he  did  it  before  sailing.  ^ 
He  wrote  a  very  angry  letter  on  the  subject,  for  the! 
delay  of  many  months  in  sending  across  the  ocean  \ 
for  the  papers  was  both  exasperating  and  dangerous.  ) 
Meantime,  he  comforted  himself  by  writing  instruc- 
tions for  improving   his    country   seat,    Pennsbury,  ^ 
which  he  had  taken  such  pleasure  in  establishing 
in  the  province.     He  took  great  delight  in  sending 
out  seeds  for  Ralph,  the  gardener,  and  in  writing 
all  manner  of  directions  to  his  steward,  James  Har- 
rison, whom  he  had   left  in   charge   of  the  place. 
Among  other  things  he  sent  him  wine  and  beer,        \ 
some  to  be  sold  for  his  account  and  the  rest  to  be 
stored  at  Pennsbury  to  improve  by  age. 

For  serious  public  occupation  he  set  to  work  on\ 
his  old  subject,  liberty  of  conscience.     There  was 
no  use  in  arguing  or  striving  for  a  general  liberty  i 
with  the  government  in  such  a  morose  temper.      *'  I  I 
therefore,"   he  says,    "sought   out   some    bleeding  ! 
cases,  which  was  not  hard  to  do."     One  in  particular  \ 
he  devoted  himself  to,  the  case  of  Richard  Vickris,  j 
a  very  quiet  man  who  was  under  sentence  of  death  \ 
for  his  religion,  for  refusing  to  swear,  and  for  vio-  \ 
lating   statutes    for   the    suppression    of  dissenters,   j 
Penn  appealed  on  his  behalf  to  the  duke,  and  the 
duke  to  the  king ;    and  Penn  succeeded.     Vickris  I 
was  pardoned. 

Penn  relates  that  he  had  to  proceed  carefully  in       

public  matters,  lest  by  offending  the  government  he    . 
might  injure  his  case  against  Lord  Baltimore.     But 
he  went  so  far  as  to  write  out  an  argument  to  show  I 
that  in  the  violent  party  heats,  and  the  factions  into    n 

253 


< 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

which  the  kingdom  was  nearly  equally  divided,  the 
crown  should  gratify  neither  extreme  party,  but  rule 
wisely  over  all.     This  argument  he  presented  to  the  j 
king  in  manuscript,  for  the  times,  he  tells  us,  werej 
"too  set  and  rough  for  print ;"  and  they  must  have,) 
indeed,  been  very  rough  if  Penn  was  unwilling  to 
print  his  opinions. 

In  the  winter  of  1684-85  Charles  IL  died  of  a 
stroke  of  apoplexy,  as  most  historians  tell  us.  But 
Bishop  Burnet  always  insisted  on  believing  that  he 
was  poisoned  by  the  Jesuits  because  he  was  on  the 
-^'^  eve  of  breaking  away  from  them  and  allowing  some 
liberal  reforms.  We  cannot,  however,  discuss  here 
the  bishop's  interesting  proofs  on  this  subject  The 
gay,  careless  king  was  dead,  and  his  brother,  the 
Roman  Catholic  Duke  of  York,  took  the  throne  as 
James  II. 

Penn  wrote  ^  account  of  these  events  to  Thomas 
Lloyd,  in  Pennsylvania,  and  in  this  letter  mentioned 
^i^^jO^  c  that  he  had  thus  far  lost  by  the  province  ;^3000, 
while  the  speculators  who  had  bought  land  from 
him  were  growing  rich.  The  next  year  he  an- 
nounces th^t  he  has  lost  ;f5000.  He  hoped,  how- 
ever, to  return  to  his  colony  in  the  autumn. 

With  his  own  particular  friend  and  his  father's 
friend,  the  Duke  of  Yprk,  on  the  throne,  Penn  was 
in  a  stronger  and  more  influential  position  than 
ever.  He  could  now  go  directly  to  the  crown  for 
favors,  and  be  tolerably  well  assured  of  success. 
But  there  was  in  this  intimacy  and  success,  as  we 
shall  soon  see,  a  great  danger.  James  II.  was  by 
no  means  disposed  to  keep  his  Romanism  a  secret, 

254 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

as  his  brother  had  done.  His  whole  family  went 
openly  to  mass,  and  he  himself  began  to  advance 
the  cause  of  his  religion  by  allowing  the  Jesuits  to 
build  a  college  in  London.  He  sent  an  ambassador 
to  Rome,  and  received  one  from  the  Pope.  How 
long  would  the  English  people,  who  dreaded  the 
Pope  and  his  religion  more  than  they  dreaded 
France  or  the  plague,  endure  such  a  king?  And 
what  would  happen  to  the  Quaker,  already  sus- 
pected of  Jesuitism,  who  was  his  favorite  ? 

But  Penn  was  not  much  accustomed  to  calculating    ^ 
on  risks  of  this  kind  ;  and  it  is  easy  to  see  how  in     / 
the  first  instance  he  was  led  into  closer  relations  with 
James.     He  expected  from  him  religious  liberty,  and      ) 
great  relief  to  the  Quakers.     James  promised  this,     ; 
and   spoke   so    beautifully   about    liberty   that    he     \ 
seemed    to    be    putting    Protestants  and  Whigs  to      / 
shame.     Within  a  year  or  so  he  was  as  good  as  his     ') 
word.     The  Quakers  had  sent  him  a  petition  show-     ^ 
ing  that  thirteen  hundred  of  their  faith  were  then  in 
prison,  and  that  in  the  last  five  years  hundreds  of 
them  had  died  of  prison  hardships.     Within  a  year, 
by  a  proclamation  of  King  James,  they  were  every 
one  set  at  liberty,  along  with  all  the  other  dissenters, 
and  a  large  number  of  Roman  Catholics,  who  were 
in  prison  for  their  religion. 

We  are  not  informed  of  the  exact  number  of  these 
prisoners  at  this  time  ;  but  as  there  were  about  thir- 
teen hundred  Quakers,  there  must  have  been  at 
least  as  many  more  of  other  sects  ;  so  that  we  can 
say  that  several  thousand  came  trooping  out  of 
the  noisome    pest-houses  in  which  they  had   been 

255 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

confined,  and  fathers  and  brothers,  even  sisters, 
wives,  and  mothers,  were  restored  to  their  families. 
It  was  a  strange  condition  of  society  which  we  now 
can  scarcely  understand,  such  a  jail  delivery  as  this 
of  people  who  had  been  imprisoned  for  years  for 
nothing  but  their  religion.  There  was  great  rejoicing 
all  over  England,  especially  among  the  Quakers, 
who  at  their  next  annual  meeting  in  London  saw 
the  faces  of  valued  friends,  some  of  whom,  accord- 
ing to  their  historian,  Gough,  had  been  in  prison 
"twelve  or  fifteen  years  and  upward." 

Penn's  biographers  have  been  inclined  to  describe 
chis  wonderful  delivery  in  such  a  way  that  the  reader 
/infers  that  Penn  was  the  cause  of  it  But  this  is 
I  hardly  fair  to  the  reader  or  to  Penn.  The  delivery 
was  part  of  a  deep  policy  adopted  by  the  king.  He 
wanted  to  deliver  the  people  of  his  own  religion. 
He  could  not  very  well  deliver  them  without  deliver- 
ing all  the  others,  and  in  delivering  others  he  thought 
he  would  win  them  to  his  side  and  accomplish  cer- 
tain purposes  he  had  in  view.  What  part  Penn  had 
Jp  the  delivery,  or  whether  he  had  any,  cannot  now 
be  determined.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that,  along 
with  others,  he  had  for  years  been  advocating  such  a 
delivery,  and  we  can  easily  believe  that  he  worked 
hard  for  his  own  thirteen  hundred.  Was  he  not, 
therefore,  more  than  ever  bound  by  gratitude,  policy, 
and  every  other  tie  to  the  king,  who  had  done  more 
for  the  Quakers  than  his  predecessor,  who  passed  for 
a  Protestant. 

Gerard  Croese,  the  historian  of  the  Quakers,  has 
described  for  us  Penn's  intimacy  with  the  king. 

256 


Iwi 
Vw; 


BECOMES  A  COURTIER 

"  William  Penn  was  greatly  in  favor  with  the  king — the  Quaker's 
sole  patron  at  court — on  whom  the  hateful  eyes  of  his  enemies  were 
intent.  The  king  loved  him  as  a  singular  and  entire  friend,  and  im- 
parted to  him  many  of  his  secrets  and  counsels.  He  often  honored 
him  with  his  company  in  private,  discoursing  with  him  of  various 
affairs,  and  that,  not  for  one,  but  many  hours  together,  and  delaying 
to  hear  the  best  of  his  peers  who  at  the  same  time  were  waiting  for 
an  audience.  One  of  these  being  envious,  and  impatient  of  delay, 
and  taking  it  as  an  affront  to  see  the  other  more  regarded  than  him- 
self, adventured  to  take  the  freedom  to  tell  his  majesty,  that  when  he 
met  with  Penn  he  thought  little  of  his  nobility.  The  king  made  no 
other  reply,  than  that  Penn  always  talked  ingenuously,  and  he  heard 
him  willingly."     ("  General  History  of  the  Quakers,"  p.  io6.) 

But  a  horrible  thing  occurred  which  one  might 
suppose  would  try  Penn  to  the  utmost.  The  young 
Duke  of  Monmouth,  the  attractive  and  accomplished, 
but  illegitimate  son  of  Charles  11.  made  a  dash  at 
the  throne,  relying  on  his  popularity  with  the  people, 
which  was  great  and  secured  him  many  Protestant 
followers.  His  insurrection  was  put  down,  and  a  ter- 
rible slaughter  made  among  those  who  had  assisted 
or  even  passively  assented  to  his  rebellion.  Judge 
Jeffreys,  of  whom  we  have  read  so  much,  and  whom 
Macaulay  describes  with  such  vividness,  went  up  and 
down  the  country  condemning  to  execution  with  the 
delight  of  a  fiend,  and  roaring  curses  at  his  victims. 
Soon  their  bleeding  heads  and  quarters  were  orna- 
menting almost  every  village  in  the  western  counties 
near  where  Monmouth  had  landed,  a  shocking  sight 
to  modem  eyes,  but  one  on  which  the  men  and  even 
women  of  that  age  could  look  with  comparative  in- 
difference. 

One  would  suppose  that  such  cruel  wholesale  ven- 
geance would  have  shaken   Penn's  regard  for  the 

17  257 


y' 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

/  king;  but  it  did  not  "The  king,"  he  said,  **was 
*  much  to  be  pitied,  who  was  hurried  into  all  this  effu- 
sion of  blood  by  Jeffrey's  impetuous  and  cruel  tem- 
per." He  writes  of  these  events  to  his  steward  at 
Pennsbury  in  the  matter-of-fact  way  men  wrote  of 
such  things  in  those  days  ;  for  no  one  then  spoke  of 
cruelty  with  the  excitement  and  horror  which  are 
now  used. 

"  About  three  hundred  hanged  in  divers  towns  in  the  West,  about 
one  thousand  to  be  transported.  I  begged  twenty  of  the  king.  Col. 
Holmes,  young  Hays,  the  two  Hewlings,  Lark,  and  Hix,  ministers, 
are  executed.  .  .  .  There  is  daily  inquisition  for  those  engaged  in 
the  late  plots,  some  die  denjring,  as  Alderman  Cornish,  others  con- 
fessing but  justifying.  ...  A  woman,  one  Gaunt  of  Wappen,  of 
Doct.  Moore's  acquaintance,  was  burned  the  same  day  at  Tyburn 
for  the  high  treason  of  hiding  one  of  Monmouth's  army,  and  the  man 
saved  came  in  against  her.  She  died  composedly  and  fearless,  in- 
terpreting the  cause  of  her  death  God's  cause.  Many  more  to  be 
hanged,  great  and  small.    It  is  a  day  to  be  wise." 

By  saying  that  it  was  a  day  to  be  wise,  Penn  prob- 
ably meant  that  in  such  a  turmoil  of  affairs  Quakers 
had  best  stand  aside,  be  quiet  and  prudent,  and  get 
what  relief  they  could.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  of 
those  to  be  transported,  he  begged  twenty  of  the 
king,  and  these,  it  is  supposed,  he  sent  to  Pennsylva- 
nia. This  saved  them  from  the  worse  fate  of  a  penal 
colony.  But  whether  he  was  able  at  this  time  to 
save  anybody's  life  is  not  known. 
,•  He  has  been  charged,  however,  by  Macaulay  in 
V  y^ihis  History  of  England,  with  being  concerned  at  this 

J  -*  0*  jtime  in  a  most  nefarious  transaction.  The  victims 
jV^N^  of  the  rebellion  were  so  numerous  that  many  low 
^  -  pardon-brokers  and   courtiers  were  driving  a  veiy 

258 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

thriving  trade  in  selling  ransoms.  Some  little  girls, 
it  seems,  had  by  the  direction  of  their  school-mis- 
tress, marched  in  a  procession  when  Monmouth 
landed.  The  maids  of  honor  at  court  demanded 
these  girls  as  their  share  of  the  spoil,  and  when  this 
was  granted  informed  the  parents  of  the  children 
that  seven  thousand  pounds  would  save  them.  Wil- 
liam Penn,  says  Macaulay,  was  the  go-between  se- 
lected to  extort  this  money. 

If  this  charge  is  true,  Penn  was  a  contemptible 
villain,  the  virtues  usually  ascribed  to  him  mere 
hypocrisy,  and  we  should  forget  as  soon  as  possible 
that  he  ever  lived,  and  change  the  name  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. When,  however,  we  examine  the  evidence 
on  which  Macaulay  relied,  we  find  that  it  is  a  letter 
written  by  Lord  Sunderland  to  a  Mr.  Penne,  asking 
him  to  undertake  the  task  in  company  with  a  Mr. 
Walden.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  Mr.  Penne 
accepted  the  offer,  or  that  he  was  the  same  person 
as  William  Penn,  and  it  is  well  known  that  there  "was 
at  that  time  a  notorious  pardon-broker  named  George 
Penne.  Moreover,  Oldmixon,  a  contemporary  au- 
thority, tells  us  that  Brent,  the  popish  lawyer,  was 
the  agent  who  finally  acted  for  the  maids  of  honor, 
Macaulay,  as  sometimes  happened,  was  hasty  in  his 
investigations  as  well  as  in  his  conclusions. 

He  also  sneers  at  Penn  for  attending,  at  this  time, 
the  executions  of  Cornish  and  Elizabeth  Gaunt 

"  William  Penn,  for  whom  exhibitions,  which  humane  men  gen- 
erally avoid,  seem  to  have  had  a  strong  attraction,  hastened  from 
Cheapside  where  he  had  seen  Cornish  hanged  to  Tyburn  in  order  to 
see  Elizabeth  Gaunt  burnt." 

259 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

Macaulay  is  very  careless  in  asserting  that  humane 
men  generally  avoid  such  exhibitions.  They  do 
now ;  but  they  did  not  then.  The  admirers  and 
friends  of  a  victim  or  martyr  usually  made  a  point 
of  going  to  see  him  die.  Evelyn,  who  was  a  devoted 
adherent  of  Charles  I.,  went  to  his  execution,  and 
calmly  describes  it  in  his  diary. 

Elizabeth  Gaunt  had  concealed  one  of  the  Mon- 
mouth rebels  in  her  house.     He  informed  on  her 
^~  and  was   allowed    to  go  free,   while  she   perished. 

-'^  -  Bishop  Burnet,  in  his  "  History  of  his  Own  Times," 
tells  us  how  Penn  described  to  him  both  her  death 
and  Cornish's,  and  Penn's  description  shows  the 
spirit  in  which  he  viewed  these  shocking  events. 

"  She  rejoiced  that  God  had  honoured  her  to  be  the  first  that 
suffered  by  fire  in  this  reign  ;  and  that  her  suffering  was  a  martyrdom 
for  that  religion  which  was  all  love.  Pen,  the  quaker  told  me,  he 
saw  her  die.  She  laid  the  straw  about  her  for  burning  her  speedily ; 
and  behaved  herself  In  such  a  manner,  that  all  the  spectators  melted 
in  tears.  .  .  . 

"  Cornish,  at  his  death,  asserted  his  innocence  with  g^eat  vehe- 
mence ;  and  with  some  acrimony  complained  of  the  methods  taken 
to  destroy  him.  And  so  they  gave  it  out,  that  he  died  in  a  fit  of  fury. 
But  Pen  who  saw  the  execution,  said  to  me,  there  appeared  nothing 
but  a  just  indignation  that  innocence  might  very  naturally  give.  Pen 
might  be  well  relied  on  in  such  matters,  he  being  so  entirely  in  the 
king's  interests."     (History  of  his  Own  Times,"  pp.  649,  651.) 

y^  It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  Penn,  in  be- 
coming a  courtier  and  associating  with  the  syco- 
phants and  corruptionists  which  at  that  time  crowded 
the  court,  ran  a  great  risk  of  being  confused  with 
"-----^em,  and  accused  of  their  crimes.  He  was  himself 
an  obtaincr  of  pardons,  and  obtained  many  of  them ; 

260 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

but  as  we  are  assured  from  several  sources  that  he 
took  no  pay,  he  cannot  be  called  one  of  the  pardon- 
brokers,  of  whom  he  must  often  have  seen  many  at 
court  It  was,  however,  in  accordance  with  his  prin-  '■ 
ciples  to  disregard  all  such  risks  as  this.  He  found 
he  had  an  influence  with  the  king,  and  he  was  deter- 
mined to  use  it  to  assist  the  Quakers  and  all  others  I 
who  were  suffering  from  the  tyranny  of  the  times. 

But  in  one  respect  he  was  very  blind,  perhaps 
deliberately  blind,  to  the  condition  of  things.  In 
a  letter  to  his  steward  at  Pennsbury,  he  shows  that 
he  was  well  aware  of  what  the  Roman  Catholics 
were  doing  in  other  countries.  It  seems  almost  in- 
credible that  he  did  not  realize  what  he  would  be 
supporting  if  he  supported  a  king  like  James. 

"  In  France,  not  a  meeting  of  Protestants  left,  they  force  all,  by  not 
suffering  them  to  sleep,  to  conform ;  they  use  drums  or  fling  water  on 
the  drowsy  till  they  submit  or  run  mad.  .  .  .  Such  as  fly  and  are 
caught  are  executed  or  sent  to  the  galleys  to  row.  .  .  .  Believe  me 
it  is  an  extraordinary  day,  such  as  has  not  been  since  generations  ago. 
Read  this  to  weighty  friends  and  magistrates  in  private." 

From  the  last  injunction  it  would  seem  that  he  did 
not  want  this  letter  to  be  made  public  and  come 
back  to  England  to  be  read  at  court.  He  was  in  a^^ 
delicate  position  with  his  boundary  case  still  pend- 
ing before  the  Privy  Council,  the  burden  of  obtain- 
ing relief  for  the  people  of  his  faith,  and  compelled . 
to  obtain  the  relief  from  such  a  source  as  James  11.^ 

Some  one  wrote  verses  extolling  the  king  and 
popery  and  signed  them  with  Penn's  initials.  It  was 
a  petty  trick,  but  in  the  prevailing  excitement  it 
helped  to  spread  the  suspicion  that  he  was  a  Jesuit 

261 


v^ 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

f  ^     He  had  to  write  a  long  statement  to  deny  the  author- 
^       ship  and  offset  the  effect  of  the  verses.     About  the 
same  time  he  discovered  that  Dr.  Tillotson,  after- 
wards Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  had  been  report- 
ing him  as  in  correspondence  with  the  Jesuits  at 
Rome  ;  and  he  had  to  write  several  letters  to  set 
Tillotson  right. 
^        But  if  some  were  inclined  to  attack  his  reputation, 
I    because  of  his  intimacy  with  the  king,  there  were 
/     others  who  for  the  same  reason  sought  his  assist- 
ance.    He  rapidly  became  a  very  active  and  influen- 
tial courtier,  and  soon  had  all  the  business  in  this 
line  that  he  could  handle. 

In  modern  times  the  British  government  is  carried 
on  by  the  cabinet  officers  or  ministry,  and  divided 
into  great  and  permanently  organized  departments. 
Those  who  have  favors  to  ask  or  claims  to  press 
deal  with  the  officials  of  these  departments  or  with 
parliamentary  committees.  But  in  Penn's  time  there 
was  none  of  this  system.  Government  by  ministry 
had  not  been  developed  to  its  present  form  ;  nor 
was  Parliament  so  important  as  it  is  now.  The 
king  was  the  source  of  all  favors  and  the  authority 
for  the  allowance  of  claims.  His  assent  must  first 
be  obtained  before  the  machinery  of  the  departments 
could  be  set  in  motion. 

So  the  courtiers — the  men  who  by  their  manners, 
accomplishments,  political  sagacity,  or  influence  with 
sects  or  parties  were  most  pleasing  to  the  king — be- 
came the  middlemen,  or  attorneys  and  agents,  to  help 
on  the  affairs  of  the  crowd  of  suitors.  It  was  busi- 
ness, but  it  was  managed  in  a  strolling  way,  as  pleas- 

262 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

antly  as  possible,  so  as  to  seem  not  like  business,  but 
as  part  of  the  gracious  favor  or  amusement  of  his 
Majesty.  Judging  from  Pepys's  "  Diary"  and  other 
books,  the  courtiers  managed  a  great  many  of  their 
affairs  and  collected  information  and  gossip  walking 
to  and  fro  with  one  another  or  with  their  clients  in 
the  gardens  or  in  the  corridors  of  White  Hall.  They 
saw  the  king  as  best  they  could  :  sometimes  when  he 
was  dressing  in  the  morning,  which  was  a  favorite 
time  with  Charles  11.  for  receiving  visitors. 

We  have  already  seen  how  Penn  secured  from  the  \ 
king  a  pardon  for  Vickris.  Soon  afterwards  he  ob- 
tained a  pardon  for  his  college-mate,  John  Locke, 
who  was  an  exile  in  Holland.  But  the  proud  philos- 
opher declined  it.  He  had  done  nothing,  he  said, 
which  required  a  pardon. 

Penn's  friendship  and  influence  with  the  king  being 
now  well  established,  the  demands  on  him  became 
incessant,  and  Gerard  Croese  tells  us  of  his  busy  life. 

*'  Penn,  being  so  highly  favored,  acquired  thereby  a  number  of 
friends.  Those  also  who  formerly  knew  him,  when  they  had  any 
favor  to  ask  at  court,  came  to,  courted,  and  entreated  Penn  to  pro- 
mote their  several  requests.  Penn  refused  none  of  his  friends  any 
reasonable  office  he  could  do  for  them,  but  was  ready  to  serve  them 
all,  but  more  especially  the  Quakers,  and  these  wherever  their  re- 
ligion was  concerned.  It  is  usually  thought,  when  you  do  me  one 
favor  readily,  you  thereby  encourage  me  to  expect  a  second.  Thus 
they  ran  to  Penn  without  intermission,  as  their  only  pillar  and  sup- 
port, who  always  caressed  and  received  them  cheerfully,  and  effected 
their  business  by  his  influence  and  eloquence.  Hence  his  house  and 
gates  were  daily  thronged  by  a  numerous  train  of  clients  and  sup- 
pliants, desiring  him  to  present  their  addresses  to  his  Majesty.  There 
were  sometimes  two  hundred  and  more.  When  the  carrying  on  of 
these  affairs  required  money  for  writings,  such  as  drawing  things  out 
into  form  and  copyings,  and  for  fees  and  other  charges  which  are 

263 


r 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

usually  made  on  sach  occasions,  Penn  so  discreetly  managed  matters, 
that  out  of  his  own,  which  he  had  in  abundance,  he  liberally  dis- 
charged many  emergent  expenses."  ("  General  History  of  the 
Quakers,"  p.  io6.) 

We  are  not  informed  of  the  various  kinds  of  cases 
Penn  managed  for  his  cUents.  A  great  deal  of  his 
business  was  obtaining  pardons,  for,  in  that  age  of 
turmoil,  rebellions,  and  civil  war,  there  were  hun- 
dreds of  people  constantly  in  exile  or  in  danger 
of  death.  There  were  many  pardon-brokers  about 
the  court,  and  some  of  them  were  very  nefarious 
in  their  operations,  demanding  enormous  sums  or 
all  a  man's  estate  for  saving  his  life.  Penn,  how- 
1^    ever,  we  are  assured,  took  no  fees. 

There  was  a  certain  Charlewood  Lawton,  who  had 
taken  part  in  Monmouth's  rebellion  and  had  been 
obliged  to  hide  himself  in  the  moorlands  of  Staf- 
fordshire ;  but  being  relieved  from  apprehension 
when  the  general  pardon  was  published,  Penn  sought 
him  out  and  made  friends  with  him  in  that  cordial 
^  \jtnanner  which  he  seems  to  have  bestowed  on  so 
T,  \  Tniany  people  to  whom  he  took  a  fancy.  Lawton,  in 
return,  became  a  great  admirer  of  Penn,  and  in  a 
memoir  he  left  speaks  with  enthusiasm  of  his  "  in- 
exhaustible spring  of  benevolence  towards  all  his 
fellow-creatures,  without  any  narrow  or  stingy  regard 
to  either  civil  or  religious  parties."  After  telling 
how  Penn  at  his  request  obtained  a  free  pardon  for 
Aaron  Smith,  who  was  about  to  buy  one  by  the  sur- 
render of  his  whole  estate,  Lawton  gives  a  de- 
scription which  throws  some  light  on  Penn's  manner 

and  the  times. 

264 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

"  After  dinner  as  we  were  drinking  a  glass  of  wine,  Mr.  Penn, 
turning  to  him,  told  Mr.  Popple  that  he  had  brought  him  such  a  man 
as  he  had  never  met  with  before.  *  I  have  just  now  asked  him  how 
I  might  do  something  for  himself,  and  he  hath  desired  me  to  get 
pardon  for  another  man.'  And  so  Mr.  Penn  repeated  at  length  what 
had  passed  between  us  upon  the  terrace  walk,  and  then  turning  to 
me,  he  said,  *  though  I  will,  at  thy  request,  get,  if  I  can,  Aaron 
Smith's  pardon,  yet  I  desire  thou  wilt  think  of  something  wherein  I 
can  do  a  kindness  for  thyself.' 

"  Upon  that  I  said  I  could  tell  him  how  he  might  prolong  my 
life.  Mr.  Penn  replied,  *  I  am  no  physician,  but  prithee  tell  me 
what  thou  meanest  ?'  And  so  I  told  him  Jack  Trenchard  (for  so 
we  State  Whigs  used  to  call  him)  who  was  afterwards  Secretary 
of  State,  was  abroad,  and  if  he  could  get  him  leave  to  come  home 
with  safety  and  honor,  the  drinking  now  and  then  a  bottle  with 
Jack  Trenchard  would  make  me  so  cheerful,  that  it  would  prolong 
my  life. 

"  To  this  Mr.  Penn  smilingly  answered,  '  To  show  thee  I  will  not 
deny  thee  anything  thou  canst  reasonably  ask,  I  promise  thee  I  will 
get  him  too  a  pardon,  if  I  can  ;'  and  after  this  we  chatted  half  an 
hour,  and  so  parted. 

"  In  three  weeks  or  a  month  he  got  Aaron  Smith's  pardon  ;  and 
prevailing  with  my  Lord  JefFeries  (then  Lord  Chancellor)  to  join 
with  him,  they  in  a  short  time  obtained  Mr.  Trenchard's."  (Me- 
moirs, Penna.  Hist.  Soc,  vol.  iii.  part  ii.  p.  215.)  ^ 

This  throng  of  clients  compelled  Penn  to  live  at 
Kensington  in  London.  He  rented  Holland  House, 
a  handsome  residence  belonging  to  the  Earl  of 
Warwick  ;  and  he  led  a  very  expensive  life,  keeping 
a  coach  and  four  and  other  extravagances.  He  may 
have  seemed  to  have  been  paying  the  expenses  of 
his  Quaker  clients  out  of  his  own  abundance,  as 
Croese  calls  it ;  but  that  abundance  was  being 
rapidly  drained,  for  in  addition  to  his  other  ex- 
penses he  was  losing  money  by  Pennsylvania.  He 
was  paying  all  the  expenses  of  government  there, 
and  the  officials  had  a  bad  habit  of  drawing  on  him 

265 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

^r^-^   I  for  whatever  they  wanted,  as  if  he  were  an  inex- 
ihaustible  mine. 

"I  have  had  two  letters  more,"  he  writes  to  his  steward,  "with 
three  bills  of  exchange.  I  am  sorry  the  public  is  so  umnindful  of 
me  as  not  to  prevent  bills  upon  me  that  am  come  on  their  errand, 
and  had  rather  have  lost  a  thousand  pounds,  than  have  stirred  from 
Pennsylvania.  .  .  .  James,  send  no  more  bills,  for  I  have  enough  to 
do  to  keep  all  even  here,  and  think  of  returning  with  my  family ; 
that  can't  be  without  vast  charge." 


^  His  heart  was  set  on  enjoying  again  the  simple, 
\  honest  pleasures  of  his  wilderness  colony,  and  never 
leaving  them.  But  he  was  held  fast  in  England  not 
only  by  the  dispute  with  Lord  Baltimore,  but  by  the 
critical  condition  of  politics  and  the  demands  of  the 
Quakers.  He  was  in  too  deep  with  the  king  to  get 
out  Neither  his  conscience  nor  his  ambition  could 
quite  permit  him  to  drop  the-  important  public  po- 
sition in  which  he  had  suddenly  found  himself  since 
i  the  accession  of  James. 

*-      In  the  spring  of  1686,  shortly  before  the  king  set 
at  liberty  the  thirteen  hundred  Quakers  with   the 
other  dissenters,  Penn  wrote  an  important  pamphlet 
^   called   "A  Persuasive  to  Moderation."     It  was  his 
/     old  subject,  liberty  of  conscience,  but  he  argues  it  out 
/       afresh  with  new  suggestions.     It  is  in  some  respects 
one  of  his  best  arguments  on  this  subject,  which  he 
handled  so  often,  for  in  this  instance  he  takes  par- 
ticular pains  to  give  instances  where  toleration  had 
proved  itself  a  political  and  commercial  success.     He 
begins,  of  course,  with  ancient  times  and  the  flour- 
ishing state  of  the  Roman  empire,  which  tolerated 
over  thirty  thousand  different  religious  rites  among 

266 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

her  people.  But  he  soon  comes  down  to  his  own 
time,  and  gives  numerous  instances  of  the  success 
of  toleration  in  the  small  states  of  Europe  and  in 
most  of  the  British  colonies  in  America.  He  con- 
sidered himself  as  proving  conclusively  by  these 
that  toleration  never  endangered  monarchy. 

His  most  important  instance,  of  course,  is  Hol- 
land, "  that  bog  of  the  world,"  as  he  calls  it, 
"  neither  sea  -  nor  dry  land,  now  the  rival  of  the 
tallest  monarchies ;  not  by  conquests,  marriages,  or 
accession  of  royal  blood,  the  usual  ways  of  empire, 
but  by  her  own  superlative  clemency  and  industry." 
Then  he  goes  on  to  show  that  toleration  gave  se- 
curity to  property,  which  could  never  be  secure 
when  estates  were  at  any  moment  liable  to  be 
swept  away  by  the  sheriff  to  pay  the  fines  for  re- 
ligious dissent 

Then  he  speaks  of  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence 
in  the  last  reign,  which,  by  relieving  the  dissenters 
from  persecution,  greatly  encouraged  trade.  So 
long  as  the  indulgence  lasted,  "  all  men,"  he  says, 
"  labored  cheerfully  and  traded  boldly  when  they 
had  the  royal  word  to  keep  what  they  got."  He 
does  not  seem,  however,  to  realize  sufficiently  that 
it  was  a  dangerous  violation  of  the  constitution  to 
allow  the  king  to  suspend  laws  even  to  accomplish 
such  a  good  purpose.  He  had  not  then  written  his 
maxim,  "To  do  evil  that  good  may  come  of  it,  is  for 
bunglers  in  politics  as  well  as  morals." 

He  calls  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence  the  **  sov- 
ereign remedy  of  our  English  constitution."  Such 
an  indulgence,  he  thinks,  will  be  the  panacea  for  all 

267 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

^  political  ills.  If  full  religious  liberty  were  allowed 
the  dissenters,  they  would  all,  he  says,  be  united  in 
favor  of  the  government,  and  such  rebellions  as 
Monmouth's  and  such  designs  as  the  Rye  House 
plot  would  cease.  This  last  was  a  sound  suggestion  ; 
but  it  was  not  sound  to  favor  granting  that  liberty 
by  allowing  the  king  to  suspend  the  laws,  and  it  is 
surprising  to  find  Penn  in  effect  arguing  for  another 
declaration  of  indulgence. 
/  Penn  afterwards  spoke  of  this  pamphlet  as  having 
not  a  little  circulation  and  influence,  and  he  was  not 

j      a  man  who  was  conceited  about  his  own  writings  or 

/\^        !      over-estimated    them.     Whether  it   influenced   the 

king  or  not,  the  king  was  on  this  occasion  wiser  than 

;      Penn,  for  he  merely  pardoned   the  dissenters  who 

/      were  in  prison,  which  he  had  a  right  to  do,  without 

/       attempting  as  yet  to  violate  constitutional  right  by 

I       suspending  the  laws. 

V^  Penn  and  the  Quakers  were,  of  course,  well 
pleased  with  this  result ;  but  Penn  seems  to  have 
known  that  things  were  not  quite  so  rosy  as  they 
seemed.  In  writing  to  his  steward,  after  saying  how 
he   longs   to    be    back  again  in  Pennsylvania,  but 

/    "great  undertakings"  crowd  him,  he  says, — 

"  The  Lord  keep  us  here  in  this  dark  day.  Be  wise,  close,  respect- 
ful to  superiors.  The  king  has  discharged  all  Friends  by  a  general 
pardon,  and  is  courteous  to  us,  though  as  to  the  Church  of  England 
things  seem  pinching.  Several  Roman  Catholics  get  much  into 
places  in  the  army,  navy,  and  court." 

So  Penn  was  well  aware  that  the  king  was  "  pinch- 
ing" the  Church  of  England.  The  letter  is  some- 
what guarded  ;  but  Penn  evidently  saw  that  the  king 

268 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

had  pardoned  the  dissenters  for  the  sake  of  avoiding 
their  hostility  for  a  time,  while  he  worked  Roman 
Catholics  into  power  and  turned  both  government 
and  church  over  to  Rome.     This,  Penn  says,  made 
a  "  dark  day  ;"  and  he  must  have  foreseen  that  when 
the  people  once  fully  realized  what  the  king  was 
doing,  there  would  be  a  terrible  outbreak  of  some 
kind.     He  was  powerless  to  turn  the  king  from  this] 
course ;  and  we  do  not  know  that  he  even  tried  at  j 
this  time.     His  influence  extended  only  to  obtainingl 
favors  for  individuals. 

Why,  then,  did  he  continue  to  stand  in  with  thQ 
king?     It  was  his  only  way  of  obtaining  relief  fon 
the  Quakers,  and  this  was  certainly  a  great  tempta-  \ 
tion  when  thirteen  hundred  of  them  had  just  beenj 
released.      As  for  a  general  liberty  of  conscience 
established  by  law,  he  apparently  had  no  hope  of  it 
at  that  time,  except  in  Pennsylvania.     In  England 
Hberty  must  be  picked  up  as  you  could  get  it.     He 
had  to  protect  from  interference  both  Pennsylvania 
and  the  Jerseys,  and  he  had  his  litigation  with  Lord 
Baltimore.     These  important  interests  might  all  be 
injured  by  losing  favor  at  court. 

It  is  curious  to  note  that  for  a  time  after  the  king 
had  pardoned  everybody  who  was  in  jail  for  their 
religion,  the  magistrates  and  judges  continued  to 
enforce  the  laws  against  dissenters ;  the  informers 
continued  to  pry  about,  and  constables  made  arrests. 
A  person  who  had  just  been  let  out  by  the  pardon 
might,  by  a  zealous  magistrate,  be  locked  up  again 
for  a  fresh  offence.  Penn  himself,  though  he  was  so  ^ 
intimate  with  the  king  and  daily  obtaining  favors  for   s 

269 


1 

1 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

his  clients,  was  not  safe  from  the  magistrates  and 
*  informers,  who  would  send  constables  to  "  pull  him 
down"  while  he  was  preaching.  "I  have  been 
thrice,"  he  writes  to  his  steward,  **  taken  at  meetings, 
but  got  off,  blessed  be  God." 

It  was  a  strange  condition  of  affairs,  and  Penn 
was  leading  a  strange  life  ;  so  influential  with  the 
king  that  he  had  become  a  courtier  with  hundreds 
of  clients,  and  at  the  same  time  going  out  to  preach 
to  the  Quakers,  the  supposed  enemies  of  the  govern- 
ment, and    pulled  down  for  it  by  constables  and 
soldiers.     The  king,  however,  after  a  time  stopped 
the  magistrates  and  constables,   so  that   the    laws 
against  dissenters  stood  on  the  books  unexecuted. 
,    '     In  the  summer  of  this  year,  1686,  Penn  made  a 
j     third  journey  to  Holland  and  Germany.   It  was  partly 
1     a  political  and  partly  a  religious  journey,  but  of  the 
religious  part  we  know  little  or  nothing,  because 


u 


he  has  left  us  no  account  of  it  But  we  may  infer 
that  he  spoke  much  of  Pennsylvania  and  urged  the 
Mennonites,  Schwenkfelders,  and  other  Quaker-like 
German  sects  to  migrate  to  his  province,  as  many  of 
them  did.  The  Quaker  historian,  Sewell,  was  then 
engaged  in  translating  into  Dutch  Penn's  description 
of  Pennsylvania,  and  also  "No  Cross,  No  Crown," 
and  Penn  met  him  in  Holland.  Of  the  political 
part  of  the  journey,  however,  something  is  known, 
and  it  is  important,  because  it  shows  how  Penn  was 
becoming  more  and  more  involved  in  the  schemes 
of  the  king. 
V~  Whether  the  king  actually  commissioned  him  to 
I  visit,  in  Holland,  William,  the  Prince  of  Orange,  is 

270 


BECOMES   A   COURTIER 

not  certain,  but,  at  any  rate,  he  did  so  and  advocated 
[tiie  king's  policy.     The  Prince  of  Orange  had  mar- 
ried James's  daughter  Mary,  who  would  succeed  to 
the  throne  if  James  had  no  son,  and,  as  things  hap-    ''-^ 
pened,  she  and  the   prince  took  the  throne  from 
James  by  violence  two  years  afterwards.     The  ob-       / 
ject  of  Penn's  visit  was  to  persuade  the  prince,  whose 
wife  was  heir  presumptive  to  the  crown,  to  agree      "^. 
that  there  should  be  not  only  freedom  of  religious 
worship  in   England,  but  that  the  test  laws,  which 
kept  both  Roman  Catholics  and  dissenters  out  of 
Parliament  and  office,  should  be  abolished.     William      <^ 
was  an  ardent  and  liberal  Protestant,  and  as  sincere 
a  believer  in  religious  liberty  as  Penn.     He  readily        ) 
agreed  that  there  should  be  freedom  of  worship  not        "; 
only  to  dissenters,  but  to  papists ;  but  he  very  natu- 
rally declined  to  have  a  hand  in  removing  the  test 
laws  which  blocked  a  Roman   Catholic  king  from 
turning  over  to  Rome  the  British  government  and 
church. 

Bishop  Burnet,  who  was  then  at  William's  court, 
has  described  Penn's  efforts  and  WiUiam's  answer 
in  a  passage  which  is  well  worth  quoting. 


"  But  for  the  tests  he  would  enter  into  no  treaty  about  them.  He 
said  it  was  a  plain  betraying  the  security  of  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion to  give  them  up.  Nothing  was  left  unsaid  that  might  move 
him  to  agree  to  this  in  the  way  of  interest.  The  king  would  enter 
into  an  entire  confidence  with  him,  and  would  put  his  best  friends  in 
the  chief  trusts.  Pen  undertook  for  this  so  positively,  that  he  seemed 
to  believe  it  himself,  or  he  was  a  great  proficient  in  the  art  of  dis- 
simulation. Many  suspected  that  he  was  a  concealed  Papist.  It  is 
certain  he  was  much  with  Father  Peter,  and  was  particularly  trusted 
by  the  Earl  of  Sunderland.     So  tho'  he  did  not  pretend  any  com- 

271 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

mission  for  what  he  promised,  yet  we  looked  on  him  as  a  man  em- 
ployed. To  all  this  the  Prince  answered,  that  no  man  was  more 
for  toleration  in  principle  than  he  was :  He  thought  the  conscience 
was  only  subject  to  God :  And  as  far  as  a  general  toleration,  even 
of  Papists,  would  content  the  king,  he  would  concur  in  it  heartily  : 
But  he  looked  on  the  Tests  as  such  a  real  security,  and  indeed  the 
only  one,  when  the  king  was  of  another  religion,  that  he  would 
join  in  no  counsels  with  those  that  intended  to  repeal  those  laws 
that  enacted  them.  Pen  said  the  king  would  have  all  or  noth- 
ing :  But  that  if  this  was  once  done  the  king  would  secure  the  tolera- 
tion by  a  solemn  and  unalterable  law.  To  this  the  late  repeal  of  the 
edict  of  Nantes  that  was  declared  perpetual  and  irrevocable  furnished 
an  answer  that  admitted  of  no  reply."  ("  Burnet's  History  of  his 
Own  Times,"  vol.  i.  693,  694.) 

It  is  strange  that  Penn  should  have  been  willing 
to  press  such  a  request ;  for  he  knew  that  James  II. 
was  drawing  Roman  Catholics  into  office  as  fast  as 
he  could  in  spite  of  the  tests.  Penn  might,  perhaps, 
have  defended  himself  by  saying  that  he  believed  in 
absolute  religious  liberty  without  restrictions  or  tests 
of  any  kind.  To  which  William  of  Orange  would 
very  justly  have  replied  that  such  complete  liberty 

might  be  possible  some  day  ;  but  at  the  present  time 

^    the   tests  must  be  retained  in  order  to  keep  the 

^     -  Roman  Catholics  out  of  power  ;  for  all  English  his- 

^      tory  had  shown  that,  if  once  in  full  control,  they 

>C'^     ^       would  organize  the  worst  sort  of  religious  despotism. 

/      J  William,  as  Burnet  tells  us,  had  about  that  time 

jTX  seen  an  intercepted  letter  of  the  Jesuits  in  which 

iT  they  boasted  that  James  had  declared  that  he  would 

/establish  the  Roman  religion  in  England,  or  die  a 
martyr  in  the  attempt* 


♦  Bomet's  History  of  his  Own  Times,  vol.  i.  p.  711. 
272 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

William  also,  of  course,  wanted  the  tests  retained 
to  keep  out  of  power  the  dissenters  who  would  de- 
stroy the  Church  of  England.  His  theory  which  he 
afterwards  put  into  practice,  and  which  proved  to  be 
the  sound  one,  was  to  protect  the  English  Church, 
keep  it  in  power,  and  keep  dissenters,  Roman  and 
otherwise,  out  of  power ;  at  the  same  time  allowing 
all  of  them  complete  freedom,  so  far  as  concerned 
their  worship.  The  British  government  has  been 
conducted  on  this  principle  with  gradual  relaxation 
of  it  down  into  our  own  time. 

Penn  on  this  occasion  seems  to  have  been  utterly 
lacking  in  common  shrewdness.  While  professing 
himself  a  lover  of  liberty  and  a  Protestant,  he  was 
appearing  at  the  court  of  the  future  King  of  Eng- 
land, as  the  dupe  and  tool  of  James  II.,  a  Roman 
Catholic  and  well  known  to  be  an  enemy  of  liberty. 
He  made  himself  very  unpopular  with  important 
people  who  were  really  his  friends,  and  laid  up  a 
store  of  trouble  for  himself  The  followers  of  the 
Prince  of  Orange  learned  to  despise  him,  and  that 
talking  and  very  violent  follower  Bishop  Burnet 
acquired  for  him  a  relentless  antipathy  which  he 
afterwards  took  no  pains  to  conceal. 

As  for  the  prince  himself,  he  was  supremely  strong 
in  the  quality  in  which  Penn  was  weak.  He  saw 
through  and  through  human  nature  at  a  glance.  He 
wasted  no  antipathy  on  Penn,  because  he  saw  that 
he  was  merely  a  sincere  man  who  was  making  a 
great  mistake. 

Penn,  Burnet  afterwards  tells  us,  persuaded  a 
Scottish  lawyer,  Steward,  to  leave  his  Puritan  and 
i8  273 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

Presbyterian  party  and  become  an  ardent  follower 
of  King  James.  This  Steward  also  came  over  to 
Holland  to  persuade  William  to  agree  that  the  tests 
should  be  abolished,  and  declared  that  James  would 
never  abolish  the  penal  laws  against  dissenters'  wor- 
ship, unless  the  tests  were  abolished  also  ;  so  that  no 
sort  of  religious  liberty  could  be  had  in  England 
unless  the  test  laws  were  sacrificed. 

There  is  another  incident  connected  with  Penn's 
visit  to  the  prince's  court  which  should  be  mentioned, 
because  it  shows  the  strength  of  his  relations  with 
James  II.  He  met  there  some  prominent  Presby- 
terian refugees  from  Scotland,  and  among  them  Sir 
Robert  Stuart,  of  Coltness.  On  his  return  to  Eng- 
land he  recommended  to  James  that  these  men 
should  be  allowed  to  return  from  exile  because  they 
were  merely  zealous  for  their  religion,  and  had  not 
been  engaged  in  treasonable  acts  against  the  govern- 
ment James  complied,  but  Sir  Robert  Stuart,  on 
his  return,  found  himself  penniless,  because  his  es- 
tate had  been  given  to  the  Earl  of  Arran.  He  told 
Penn  of  it ;  and  in  the  Earl  of  Buchan's  "  Essays 
on  Fletcher  and  Thompson,"  we  have  a  description 
of  the  very  sharp  and  quick  way  by  which  Penn 
compelled  the  restoration  of  the  estate. 

"  Thou  hast  taken  possession  of  Coltness's  estate,"  said  Penn. 
"  Thou  knowest  that  it  is  not  thine." 

"  That  estate,"  said  Arran,  ♦•  I  paid  a  great  price  for.  I  received 
no  other  reward  for  my  expensive  and  troublesome  embassy  in 
France." 

"  All  very  well,  friend  James,  but  of  this  assure  thyself,  that  if 
thou  dost  not  give  me  this  moment  an  order  on  thy  chamberlain  for 
two  hundred  pounds  to  Coltness  to  carry  him  down  to  his  native 

274     . 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 


country,  and  a  hundred  a  year  to  subsist  on  till  matters  are  adjusted, 
I  will  make  it  as  many  thousands  out  of  thy  way  with  the  king" 
(p.  29). 

Arran,  we  are  told,  instantly  complied,  and  after 
the  revolution  the  estate  was  fully  restored.     This  \ 
strength  of  Penn's  influence  with  the  king  leads  us  I 
to  infer  that  the  king  must  have  considered  Penn's/ 
services  of  great  value,  and  that  Penn  must  have 
been  doing  a  good  deal  for  him.     James   II.  was 
hardly  the  man   to  allow  Penn  so  many  favors  for 
nothing. 

It  will  be  remembered,  in  the  passage  just  quoted 
from  Bishop  Burnet,  that  he  speaks  of  Penn  as 
the  friend  of  Lord  Sunderland,  or,  as  he  puts  it, 
"particularly  trusted  by  the  Earl  of  Sunderland." 
Penn  had  first  met  Sunderland  in  Paris,  or,  as  some 
say,  at  Oxford,  when  the  students  rebelled  against 
the  surplices.  'They  were  always  intimate.  :  He 
assisted  Penn  in  obtaining  his  charter  for  Pennsyl- 
vania. Penn  wrote  letters  to  him  from  the  province. 
He  addressed  him  in  one  letter  as  "  Noble  and  old 
Friend,"  *  and  he  sought  his  aid  against  Lord  Bal- 
timore. Penn's  biographers  usually  mention  this 
intimacy  in  a  casual  way,  and  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  the  ordinary  reader  would  infer  that  Sun- 
derland was  some  pleasant,  philanthropic  nobleman, 
with  a  handsome  country  seat  and  plenty  of  game. 

Unless,  however,  his  biographers  have  very  much 
belied  him,  this  Sunderland  was  the  most  unprinci- 


/T 


*  Buck's  Penn  in  America,  p.  159;  Memoirs,  Penna.  Hist.  Soc, 
vol.  iv.  p.  183. 

275 


THE   TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

pled  and  low-lived  politician  that  has  ever  been  a 
curse  to  Great  Britain.  He  had  neither  morals, 
honesty,  nor  honor.  He  was  in  the  secret  pay  of 
France,  and  received  from  that  source  ;£"25oo  a 
year  for  furnishing  information.  He  posed  as  the 
zealous  friend  of  James  II.  ;  but  he  allowed  his  wife 
to  have  an  amorous  intrigue  with  Henry  Sydney, 
who  was  an  adherent  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and 
through  his  wife  and  her  paramour  he  sent  informa- 
tion to  that  prince  at  the  very  time  he  professed  to 
be  upholding  James.  When  he  thought  James  was 
about  to  succeed  in  turning  the  government  over  to 
Rome,  he  became  a  Roman  Catholic,  having  previ- 
ously compelled  his  son  to  take  the  same  course. 
When  William  III.  arrived  to  drive  James  from  the 
throne,  Sunderland  hastily  absconded,  having  first 
robbed  the  jewel  office  and  borrowed  large  sums 
of  money.  He  afterwards  returned  to  England, 
worked  himself  into  the  good  graces  of  William, 
and  became  a  Protestant  again. 

I  do  not  give  this  description  for  the  purpose  of 
suggesting  that  it  was  wrong  for  Penn  to  be  intimate 
with  him,  or  that  Penn  was  in  any  way  like  him. 
But  if  we  would  understand  Penn's  position  and  all 
that  happened  to  him  in  the  next  few  years,  we  must 
know  his  surroundings  and  the  sort  of  men  on  whom 
he  relied  for  favors  and  assistance. 

Henry  Sydney,  who  shared  Sunderland's  wife,  was 
the  brother  of  Algernon  Sydney,  and,  strangely 
enough,  his  sister  was  Sunderland's  mother.  Henry 
Sydney  soon  took  a  leading  part  in  bringing  over 
William  III.     Penn  was  intimate  with  him,  and,  as 

276 


I 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

we  shall  see,  was  befriended  by  him ;   but  he  was 
not  what  we  should  call  a  saint 

There  were  very  few  saints  at  court.  If  Penn 
had  declined  to  be  intimate  with  any  but  good  men, 
his  acquaintance  would  have  been  small.  These 
noblemen  were  all  buying  and  selling  one  another. 
They  would  accuse  one  of  their  number  of  treason, 
give  information  against  him,  and  immediately  apply 
to  have  his  estate  given  them  when  he  should  be 
convicted. 

In  the  autumn  of  this  year,  1686,  after  his  return\ 
from  Holland,  we  find  Penn  preaching  in  various 
parts  of  England,  and  delighted  at  the  numbers 
which  attended, — often  a  thousand  at  a  meeting. 
At  the  same  time  he  was  writing  most  pathetic 
letters  to  the  steward  of  his  wilderness  country-seat 
in  Pennsylvania.  They  were  still  drawing  on  him 
for  all  sorts  of  things,  the  expenses  of  the  govern-  \  J  \f, 
ment,  and  extravagant  provisions  and  suppHes  for 
his  servants  and  people  at  Pennsbury.  "  Now  I  de- 
sire thee,"  he  writes,  '*  to  draw  no  more  upon  me  for 
one  penny."  He  was  now,  he  says,  ;£"5000  and  \^'- 
more  behindhand.  They  have  a  good  farm  and 
stock  at  Pennsbury,  why  should  they  be  importing  / 
meat  and  other  things  from  Ireland  and  compelling 
him  to  pay  for  them  ?  so  again  he  says  in  the  same 
letter,  "  I  beseech  thee  not  to  draw  any  more." 

He  could  easily  have  stopped  this  nonsense  by  a 
little  firmness  with  his  people,  instead  of  beseeching 
and  begging  them  ;  but  he  was  a  bad  manager  of_ 
such    things.       This    man    Harrison,    who   was    his 
steward  at  Pennsbury,  he  liked  and  almost  idolized,      \ 

277 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

as  he  did  every  one  whom  he  employed.  He  wrote 
him  most  confidential,  affectionate  letters,  which  are 
very  interesting  now  to  read,  because  they  show  how 
he  delighted  in  all  his  plans  for  the  province. 

He  was  sending  out  grape-vines  by  the  thousand  ; 
for  every  one  at  that  time  expected  that  grapes  and 
wine  would  be  one  of  the  great  industries  in  America. 
While  in  the  province,  Penn  had  written  to  Lord 
Halifax  about  the  "incredible  number"  of  wild 
grapes,  and  he  describes  having  drunk  "a  good 
claret"  that  had  been  made  from  them.  It  must  have 
been  his  extreme  delight  in  all  these  natural  things  of 
his  province  that  made  that  claret  seem  good.  Many 
years  afterwards  travellers  related  how  everywhere 
in  the  environs  of  Philadelphia  they  saw  grape-vines 
and  the  remains  of  attempted  vineyards.  Silk-worm 
raising  was  also  another  delusion  which  many  people 
had  about  America  ;  but  Penn  escaped  that 

He  was  giving  directions  about  gardening,  grass, 
corn,  and  sheep,  and  the  fertilizers  soot  and  ashes 
that  might  be  used.  And  how  he  longed  to  be  back 
there  again  ;  and  how  quickly  he  would  fly  there  if 
that  detestable  Baltimore  litigation  would  only  end  ! 
"  There  is  nothing  my  soul  breathes  more  for  in  this 
world,  next  to  my  dear  family's  life,  than  that  I  may 
see  poor  Pennsylvania  again."  But  the  people  there 
must  treat  him  better,  or  he  would  not  come  to 
them.     They  really  must 

"  Besides  that  the  country  think  not  upon  my  supply,  and  I  resolve 
never  to  act  the  governor  and  keep  another  family  and  capacity  upon 
my  private  estate.  If  my  table,  cellar  and  stable  may  be  provided 
for,  with  a  barge  and  yacht  or  sloop  for  the  service  of  governor  or 

278 


BECOMES  A   COURTIER 

government  I  may  try  to  get  hence,  for  in  the  sight  of  God,  I  can  say 

I  am  five  thousand  pounds  behindhand  more  than  I  ever  received  or 

saw  for  land  in  that  province,  and  to  be  so  baffled  by  the  merchants  ] 

is  discouraging  and  not  to  be  put  up." 

The  yacht  seems  at  first  sight  an  extravagance ; 
but  it  was  really  needed  for  his  journeys  up  and 
down  his  hundred  miles  of  river-front,  which  was  x^ 

the  principal  highway.     In  anoth^xjetter  he  scolds    f^^ 
again.     He  really  will  not  come  to  them  unless  they 
behave  better  and  stop  wrangling  and  misgoverning 
among  themselves.     He  means  what  he  says.    "  This 
is  no  anger,  though  I  am  grieved,  but  a  cool  and  | 

resolved  thought."     And  then  he  goes  on  "entreat-  | 

ing"  them  to  stop  drawing  on  him,  instead  of  order-  | 

ing  them  to  stop  ;  and  he  cannot  understand  why  he  j 

should  have  to  pay  for  sending  beef  to  them  from 
England.  * 

When  Penn's  affections  were  deeply  touched, —  \      .  ,  fj^        i 
when  he  took  a  fancy  to  a  province,  or  to  a  man,  or  \   ^  '•^ 
to  a  king, — there  seems  to  have  been  no  limit  to  his^/  j 

folly.  /  ' 


279 


XVIII 


SUPPORTS   THE    DESPOTISM    OF   JAMES    II 


1 


In  the  spring  of  1687  James  II.  made  what  on  its 
face  was  a  grand  proclamation  of  liberty.     He  issued 
a  declaration  of  indulgence  suspending  not  only  the 
(^  laws  against  the  worship  of  Romanists  and  other  dis- 

senters, but  also  the  test  acts  which  kept  them  out 
of  Parliament  and  civil  and  military  offices.  He  threw 
down  the  bars  and  laid  open  the  government  in 
a  way  which  he  could  certainly  say  was  far  in  ad- 
vance of  his  time  ;  for  such  liberality  was  not  after- 
wards attained  in  a  hundred  years. 

Lawton,  whose  memoir  has  been  already  quoted, 
says  that  Penn  had  opposed  an  indulgence  which 
suspended  the  laws  in  such  an  unconstitutional  and 
unpopular  way.  We  know  not  what  passed  between 
Penn  and  the  king  on  the  subject,  and  Lawton  does 
not  give  us  the  source  of  his  knowledge.  But 
Penn's  writings  do  not  show  an  opposition  to  the 
^vJDeclaration  of  Indulgence  ;  nor  does  his  conduct 
He  was  one  of  those  who  made  efforts  to  procure 
from  the  various  religious  bodies  addresses  and  me- 
morials thanking  the  king  for  his  declaration,  and 
he  himself  presented  the  address  from  the  Quakers 
describing  the  indulgence  as  well  accepted  through- 
out the  country.     We  have  the  king's  answer  to  this 

280 


\ 


DESPOTISM   OF  JAMES   II 

latter  address,  and  it  is  worth  reading  and  remem- 
bering. 

"  Gentlemen,  I  thank  you  heartily  for  your  address.  Some  of  you 
know  (I  am  sure  you  do  Mr.  Penn),  that  it  was  always  my  principle, 
that  consciences  ought  not  to  be  forced,  and  that  all  men  ought  to 
have  the  liberty  of  their  consciences.  And  what  I  have  promised  in 
my  declaration  I  will  continue  to  perform  so  long  as  I  live.  And  I 
hope  before  I  die,  to  settle  it,  so  that  after  ages  shall  have  no  reason 
to  alter  it." 

This  was  the  king's  "  word  for  Hberty,"  in  which 
Penn  afterwards  said  he  had  implicit  faith.  He  be- 
lieved that  the  king  would  in  the  end  establish  com- 
plete liberty,  and  this  was  one  of  the  reasons  why 
he  was  willing  to  stand  by  him.  The  whole  court 
had,  indeed,  put  on  the  most  extraordinary  airs  of 
liberality.  The  popish  priests  outdid  Penn  and  de- 
scribed with  enthusiasm  the  immense  benefits  that 
would  result  from  religious  liberty.  But  the  king) 
had  peculiar  methods  for  establishing  this  very  de- 
sirable thing,  and  how  Penn  could  continue  to  sup- 
port him  is  a  mystery  which  each  reader  must  ex- 
plain for  himself  as  we  go  on. 

Before  he  resorted  to  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence 
James  had  been  drawing  Roman  Catholics  into  office 
and  into  the  livings  of  the  Established  Church.  By 
dismissing  some  judges  and  packing  the  court  with 
his  favorites  he  had  obtained  a  decision  that  although 
he  might  not  have  the  right  to  dispense  with  the 
tests  which  prohibited  Romanists  as  a  body  from 
holding  office,  he  might  on  special  grounds  dispense 
with  these  tests  in  individual  instances.  In  this  way 
he  thought  that  the  offices  of  government  might  be 

281 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

given  to  people  of  his  own  religion  one  by  one.  A 
start  once  made  and  the  fashion  set,  many  of  the 
aristocracy  would  change  their  religion,  as  they  had 
done  in  former  reigns,  and  those  who  would  not 
change  could  be  forced.  He  supposed  that  English 
Churchmen  were  still  very  much  attached  to  the 
doctrine  of  passive  obedience  and  ready  to  accept 
without  question  the  religion  of  the  civil  power  if 
backed  by  force. 

In  this,  however,  he  was  mistaken.    That  the  game 
had  been  successfully  played  before  was  true.     In 
the  early  days  of  the  Reformation  when  everything 
was  in  a  state  of  flux,  when  men's  minds  were  be- 
wildered and  their  convictions  unsteady,  any  one  who 
captured  the  government  machinery  could  force  the 
religion  of  England    into    almost   any  channel   he 
chose.     But  that  day  was  passed,  as  James  soon  dis- 
covered, and  Penn  having  failed  to  obtain  for  him 
the  consent  of  William  of  Orange  to  a  repeal  of  the 
tests  which  kept  Roman  Catholics  out  of  power  he 
resolved  to  repeal  those  tests  on  his  own  responsi- 
bility by  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence.    To  make 
it  more  acceptable  he  said  that    he  would  try  to 
induce  Parliament  to  abolish  by  law  the  tests  which 
he  was  then  abolishing  by  despotism. 
yr-  Penn  retained  his  confidence  in  James  in  the  face 
\   of  all  facts  and  warnings.     He  knew  the  situation. 
I  He  knew  that  the  great  object  of  the  Roman  church 
I  in  that  age  was  to  seize  political  power,  and  that  it 
/   was  often  successful ;  and  he  knew  also  the  conse- 
J    quences  of  such  success.     He  knew  that  Louis  XIV. 
I    of  France  was  on  friendly  terms  with  James,  and 

282 


DESPOTISM  OF  JAMES  II 

when  opportunity  offered  would  assist  in  capturing 
gie  English  government  for  Rome.  He  had  letters 
from  friends  on  the  continent  describing  the  perse- 
cutions that  still  continued  there  :  how  the  Protes- 
tants were  hunted  down  by  soldiers,  who  kept  them 
awake  by  throwing  water  on  them  until  they  turned 
Catholic  or  went  mad.  He  remembered  that  his 
uncle,  George  Penn,  had  been  caught  by  the  Inqui- 
sition in  Spain,  his  property  confiscated  by  the 
church,  himself  imprisoned  for  three  years,  during 
which  time  he  was  whipped  once  a  month,  and 
finally  tortured  on  the  rack  and  sent  back  to  Eng- 
land a  wrecked  and  dying  man. 

He  must  have  felt  the  force  of  all  this  ;  but  he  at- 
tempted to  argue  against  it  in  a  most  extraordinary 
pamphlet  called  "  Good  Advice  to  Roman  Catholic  4 
and  Protestant  Dissenters."  This  pamphlet  was  issued 
soon  after  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence  appeared, 
and  was  avowedly  in  support  of  the  king's  policy. 
It  is  significant  that  Penn  would  not  sign  his  namel 
to  it,  but  published  it  anonymously.  -^^ 

The  substance  of  it  is  that  the  test  laws  should  be 
abolished  in  the  interests  of  religious  liberty,  because 
there  was  now  no  danger  from  the  Roman  Catholics. 
They  could  not  capture  the  government,  even  if  the 
tests  were  removed,  because,  first  of  all,  the  masses  of 
the  English  people  were  opposed  to  such  an  attempt 
The  Catholics  were  a  sensible  people,  knew  their 
own  interest,  and  would  not  want  to  do  what  the 
majority  in  England  disapproved  of  *'  Toleration," 
he  says,  "  and  no  more,  is  that  which  all  Romanists 
ought  to  be  satisfied  with."     And  he  professed  to 

283 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

(think  that  because  they  ought  to  be  satisfied  that 
therefore  they  would  be  satisfied.  They  would  not, 
he  said,  take  too  much.  Some  of  them,  undoubt- 
edly, wanted  to  take  everything,  but  they  were  not 
sufficiently  numerous.  In  fact,  the  whole  body  of  the 
I  Catholics  was  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  popula- 

tion,— scarcely  thirty  thousand  out  of  eight  million, 
— and  they  were  very  much  divided  in  opinion. 
I  As  for  the  king's  putting  the  Romanists  in  power, 

that  was  impossible,  because  he  was  an  old  man  of 
fifiy-three  years,  of  a  short-lived  family,  and  he  would 
not  have  time  before  his  death  to  accomplish  the 
designs  of  which  he  was  suspected.  Moreover,  he 
had  given  his  word  against  anything  of  that  kind, 
and  why  should  not  a  king's  word  be  as  good  as  any 
6'         ^  man's  ?     Penn   actually  had  the    face   to   say  that 

yjames  would   not  establish   popery  and   despotism 
^    ^         Ll)ecause  he  had  promised  not  to  do  so. 

y  ^  As  for  Louis  XIV.  of   France  coming  to  assist 

A  James  in  such  a  design,  Penn  said  there  was  nothing 

to  fear  in  that  because  it  was  not  likely  that  James 
would  be  so  ill  advised  as  to  admit  a  foreign  army 
into  England,  and,  even  if  he  did,  England  had 
enough  ships  and  men  to  prevent  it. 

This  anonymous  pamphlet  is  a  rather  ugly  cir- 
cumstance in  Penn's  life,  and  his  biographers  have 
touched  very  lightly  upon  it  or  attempted  to  ob- 
scure that  part  of  it  which  advocates  the  abolition 
I  of  the  tests  and  upholds  the  policy  of  James.  They 
•  would  prefer  to  have  it  seem  to  be  a  pamphlet  in 
favor  only  of  the  abolition  of  the  penal  laws  against 
worship. 

a«4  _ ^ 


DESPOTISM   OF  JAMES  II       ^-"-^ 

Some  biographers  not  only  ignore  this  pamphlet, 
but  go  so  far  as  to  argue  that  Penn  was  opposed  to 
the  policy  of  James.  Dixon  cites  Clarendon  as  say- 
ing, under  date  of  June  23,  1688,  that  Penn  "labored 
to  thwart  the  Jesuitical  influence  that  predominated." 
But  when  we  come  to  read  this  passage  in  Clarendon's 
diary,  we  find  that  Dixon  has  paraphrased  it,  and  it 
is  not  quite  so  strong  as  he  would  have  us  believe. 


"  Robert  Barclay  dined  with  me :  he  told  me  that  he  and  Penn 
had  reconciled  Lord  Sunderland  and  Lord  Melfort ;  which  he  hoped 
would  be  the  ruin  of  Father  Peters." 


Very  likely  Penn  did  oppose  the  Jesuitical  influ- 
ence. He  was,  no  doubt,  as  Dixon  says,  opposed  to 
the  Declaration  of  Indulgence  being  read  in  the 
churches  ;  and,  as  we  shall  see,  he  advised  the  king 
to  release  the  bishops  who  were  imprisoned  for  not 
ordering  it  to  be  read.  He  also,  it  appears,  advised 
the  king  "to  be  cautious  in  his  connection  with 
France,  lest  the  country  should  be  discontented."  It 
will  be  observed,  however,  that  he  only  advises  him 
to  be  cautious.  He  does  not  advise  him  to  abstain 
altogether.  There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  he  re- 
monstrated with  the  king  against  many  of  his  meas- 
ures, and  we  shall  see  more  instances  of  his  opposing 
particular  measures.  But  he  wrote  the  anonymous 
pamphlet  favoring  James's  supreme  measure  of  abol- 
ishing the  tests,  and  he  ridiculed  the  fears  of  what 
might  result  from  this  abolition.  He  was  in  the  ex- 
traordinary position  of  opposing  important  measures 
of  James's  when  they  were  first  broached,  and  then, 
when  they  were  carried  out,  acquiescing  in  them  or, 

285 


% 


^/ 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM  PENN 

as  in  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  assisting  in 
carrying  them  out  He  was  opposed  to  particular 
measures ;  in  fact,  if  we  can  believe  his  biographers, 
he  was  opposed  to  all  the  measures  of  James,  and 
yet  remained  with  him  and  secretly  supported  his 
most  important  measure  in  an  anonymous  pamphlet 
But  it  is  absurd  for  any  one  to  attempt  to  show 
that  Penn  was  not  an  upholder  of  and  believer  in 
James ;  for  Penn  himself  has  expressly  admitted  it 
He  believed  that  James,  in  spite  of  his  t;^annous 
measures,  would  come  out  right  in  the  end.  ]  After 


James  was  dethroned  by  William  III.,  Penn,  in  a 
letter  to  the  Quakers  explaining  his  conduct,  said, — 

"  Nor  can  I  yet  see  that  providence  of  liberty  and  peace  which  we 
enjoyed  under  him  was  such  a  trick  or  snare  as  some  have  repre- 
sented it.  .  .  .  One  thing  I  know — could  I  have  apprehended  that 
the  good  days  we  had  during  his  reign,  were  a  trick  to  introduce  evil 
ones,  all  obligations  would  have  ceased  with  me  and  no  man  more 
^  earnestly  and  cheerfully  engaged  after  my  manner  against  his  govern- 

ment than  myself.     (Janney's  Life  of  Penn,  p.  354.) 

He  was  a  very  much  deluded  man  ;  that  was  the 
simple  truth  of  the  matter ;  and,  besides  the  anony- 
mous pamphlet,  he  seems  to  have  used  his  personal 
influence  among  the  dissenters  to  reconcile  them  to 
the  Declaration  of  Indulgence  and  the  policy  of  the 
king.  For  this  purpose  the  Dutch  ambassador  tells^ 
us  he  travelled  over  the  kingdom.*  But  he  could 
win  over  only  a  few.  The  great  mass  of  them  would 
not  accept  the  measure,  even  though  it  contained  a 
benefit  for  them  ;  a  benefit  which  was,  indeed,  great, 

♦Van   Citters  to  States-General,   4/17   Oct   1687;    Mackintosh 
Revolution,  1688,  p.  290. 

286 


DESPOTISM   OF  JAMES  II 

for  it  relieved  them  from  suffering  which  in  this  age  we 
can  hardly  realize.  They  were  shocked  and  alarmed 
at  the  principle  involved, — that  the  king  could  without 
the  consent  of  Parliament  repeal  laws  ;  and  in  the  re- 
moval of  the  tests,  which  excluded  both  the  Catholics 
and  themselves  from  office,  they  saw  nothing  but  the 
trick  of  a  Catholic  king  to  bring  his  own  followers 
into  power  and  crush  out  Protestantism  by  force. 

But  Penn  went  on  believing  in  James.  He  still 
had  faith  in  the  royal  word  for  liberty,  and  thought 
all  fears  to  the  contrary  groundless.  This  expression, 
the  king's  word  for  liberty,  had  then  become  a  party 
cry ;  and  there  were  many  who  maintained  that  the 
king's  word  on  this  subject  was  a  better  safeguard 
than  law.  But  how  Penn  could  continue  to  retain 
his  faith  in  James  or  his  word  in  the  transaction  with 
Magdalen  College  is  difficult  to  understand. 

James  pursued  his  purpose  steadily.      He  set  out 
to  capture  the  universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,    ^ 
and  began  to    force  Roman  Catholic  officers  upon      \ 
them.     This  was  certainly  attacking  the  stronghold,     ( 
for  whoever  could  possess  himself  of  those  two  seats 
of  learning  could  control  the  religion  of  England.        v 
Christ  Church   College  and  University  were  taken,         /  jj 

and  when  the  presidency  of  Magdalen  became  vacant  ' 

he  ordered  the  fellows  to  elect  a  Catholic.     They 
refused,  and  when  in  spite  of  threats  they  continued       \ 
to  persist  in  their  refusal,  the  king's  officers  broke  ,; 

down  the  college  doors,  turned  out  the  president,  the  - 

fellows,  and  the  students,  and  the  place  was  turned 
into  a  popish  seminary.  i 

In  this  piece  of  tyranny  I   am  glad  to  say  that  "\  ^ 

287 


\« 


r\ 


I 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

Penn  at  first  took  the  part  of  remonstrating  with 
the  king.  But  unfortunately  when  he  found  the 
king  set  in  his  purpose  he  changed  his  ground  and 
advised  the  college  to  yield.  Two  or  three  colleges 
would,  he  said,  content  the  papists.  Let  them  have 
Christ  Church,  University,  and  Magdalen.  If  they 
dared  to  go  farther  they  would  lose  his  support 
This  was  his  method  for  establishing  religious  liberty 
in  England.  He  still  professed  to  believe  that  James 
would  not  take  everything  for  the  Catholics  ;  and  he 
.   >yj  had  no  objection  to  the  papists  acquiring  colleges  by 

)  unlawful  means.     Colleges  they  must  have,  so  he 

would  let  them  take  by  violence  one  or  two  that 
belonged  to  the  Protestants.  His  interview  with  the 
fellows  of  Magdalen  is  given  by  Dr.  Hough,  their 
president,  and  speaks  for  itself 

"  He  said  *  Majesty  did  not  love  to  be  thwarted ;  and  after  so  long 
a  dispute  we  could  not  expect  to  be  restored  to  the  king's  favor  with- 
out making  some  concessions.   .  .  .'  However  said  I,  *  Mr.  Penn,  in 
this  I  will  be  plain  with  you.     We  have  our  statutes  and  oaths  to 
justify  us  in  all  that  we  have  done  hitherto ;  but  setting  this  aside,  we 
have  a  religion  to  defend,  and  I  suppose  yourself  would  think  us 
Vr-    knaves  if  we  would  tamely  give  it  up.     The  papists  have  already 
V:.       gotten  Christ  Church  and  University:   The  present  struggle  is  for 
v"     '    Magdalen ;  and  in  a  short  time  they  threaten  they  will  have  the  rest.' 
^hJJ'  He  replied  with  vehemence.     *  That  they  shall  never  have,  assure 

^^  yourselves;  if  once  they  proceed  so  far  they  will  quickly  find  them- 

Cr*  selves  destitute  of  their  present  assistance.     For  my  part,   I   have 

always  declared  my  opinion  that  the  preferments  of  the  Church  should 
wC^  not  be  put  into  any  other  hands  but  such  as  they  are  at  present  in  ; 

but  I  hope  you  would  not  have  the  two  Universities  such  invincible 
bulwarks  for  the  Church  of  England,  that  none  but  they  must  be 
capable  of  giving  their  children  a  learned  education.  I  suppose  two 
or  three  colleges  will  content  the  Papists  ;  Christ  Church  is  a  noble 
structure,  University  is  a  pleasant  place,  and  Magdalen  College  is  a 
comely  building.     The  walks  are  pleasant,  and  it  is  conveniently 

288 


DESPOTISM  OF  JAMES  II 


situated,  just  at  the  entrance  of  the  town,'  &c.,  &c.  When  I  heard 
him  talk  at  this  rate  I  concluded  he  was  either  off  his  guard,  or  had 
a  mind  to  droll  upon  us.  '  However,'  I  replied,  *  when  they  had 
ours  they  would  take  the  rest,  as  they  and  the  present  possessors 
could  never  agree !  In  short,  I  see  it  is  resolved  that  the  Papists 
must  have  our  college ;  and  I  think  all  we  have  to  do  is,  to  let  the 
world  see  that  they  take  it  from  us,  and  that  we  do  not  give  it  up." 
(Janney's  Life  of  Penn,  316.) 


In  all  this  conduct  in  support  of  James,  Penn  was 
in  the  most  absurd  manner  contradicting  his  former 
principles.  It  will  be  remembered  that  at  the  time 
he  was  assisting  in  electing  Algernon  Sydney  to 
Parliament,  he  wrote  a  pamphlet  called  "  England's 
Great  Interest  in  the  Choice  of  this  New  Parliament," 
and  he  there  declared  that  no  law  could  be  made  or 
abrogated  in  England  except  by  Parliament,  that  the 
English  constitution  was  a  government  of  laws,  and 
that  anything  else  was  tyranny.  Thus  in  1679  he 
wrote  directly  against  a  declaration  of  indulgence, 
and  in  1687  he  was  travelling  about  England  trying 
to  persuade  the  people  to  accept  an  indulgence.     "^ 

Just  after  the  failure  of  Algernon  Sydney  to  be 
elected  to  Parliament,  Penn  wrote  another  pamphlet 
called  "One  Project  for  the  Good  of  England,"  in 
which  he  spoke  fiercely  of  the  design  of  the  papists 
to  capture  the  government ;  declared  that  while  no- 
body must  be  persecuted  for  their  religion,  yet  Eng- 
land must  be  ruled  by  Protestants  ;  that  the  differ- 
ence between  Catholics  and  Protestants  was  not  only 
religious,  but  civil  and  political ;  that  Catholics  had 
a  different  theory  of  government ;  that  they  believed 
in  despotism  ;  and  that  if  they  got  into  power  they 
would  wreck  the  liberties  of  England. 

289 


n 


< 


r 


»9 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

His  whole  design,  stated  again  and  again  in  this 
pamphlet,  was  to  band  together  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land and  the  dissenters  against  the  Romanists,  to  ■ 
show  that  it  was  absurd  for  the  Church  of  England 
to  persecute  the  dissenters,  because  the  dissenters 
could  save  the  country  from  Roman  despotism. 
Eight  years  later  he  had  shifted  to  the  opposite  po- 
sition and  was  trying  to  band  together  Rome  and 
the  dissenters  against  the  Church  of  England. 

The  most  curious  part  of  all  is,  that  at  the  end  of 
this  pamphlet  he  offers  a  new  test  oath,  composed 
by  himself,  drawn  with  great  care,  so  that  Quakers 
could  take  it,  and  followed  by  provisions  for 
having  it  subscribed  by  all  the  freeholders  of  Eng- 
land, for  the  express  purpose  of  keeping  every  Ro- 
man Catholic  in  the  kingdom  out  of  politics  and 
out  of  power.  In  1679,  therefore,  he  was  advo- 
cating tests  and  inventing  some  of  his  own.  In 
1687  he  was  for  abolishing  the  tests  altogether. 

James  went  on  step  by  step,  and  doubtless  Penn 
thought  that  each  step  would  be  the  last,  and  would 
satisfy  the  papists.  But  the  papists  became  so 
abundantly  satisfied  that  the  Protestants  could  stand 
it  no  longer.  James  being  determined  to  have  laws 
made  in  support  of  his  policy,  attempted  to  pack 
Parliament,  or,  in  the  language  then  used,  regulate 
it  He  attempted  to  regulate  the  counties,  the 
boroughs,  and  the  returning  officers,  so  that  his  own 
favorites  would  be  elected,  and  as  fast  as  one  vio- 
lent schemd  of  this  sort  failed  he  tried  another. 
AVhen  he  found  himself  still  unsuccessful  in  getting 
the  members  he  wanted  he  called  on  the  boroughs 

290 


DESPOTISM   OF  JAMES  II 

to  surrender  their  charters  and  receive  new  ones. 
Few  complied,  and  those  that  refused  had  soldiers 
quartered  on  them  to  harass  them  into  a  surrender. 
Through  all  the  departments  of  government  there 
was  a  general  turning  out  to  make  vacancies  to  be 
filled  by  the  king's  men. 

In  this  way  a  year  passed  by  after  the  Declaration 
of  Indulgence  had  been  issued,  and  in  April,  1688, 
James  issued  another  of  those  dangerous  instru- 
ments to  the  same  effect  as  the  first  one.  But  he 
made  it  more  detestable  by  announcing  that  he 
would  put  none  into  public  office  except  those  who 
would  support  him  in  maintaining  the  indulgence, 
and  he  completed  his  own  ruin  by  ordering  that  this 
second  indulgence  should  be  read  on  two  successive 
Sundays  by  the  clergy  in  all  the  churches  of  the 
kingdom.  He  intended  to  humiliate  and  break 
down  the  Church  of  England  and  bend  it  to  his 
will.  He  would  compel  its  clergy  to  read  the  in- 
trument  intended  for  their  ruin,  the  instrument 
which  would  allow  papists  to  replace  them  in  their 
livings  and  parishes.  As  his  Jesuit  adviser.  Father 
Petre,  expressed  it,  the  English  clergy  must  eat  dirt, 
the  dirtiest  of  all  dirt 

But  again  James  had  miscalculated.  The  dis- 
senters had  no  love  for  the  Established  Church  ;  but 
as  Englishmen  and  lovers  of  liberty  they  encouraged 
the  Churchmen  to  resist  this  act  of  tyranny.  The 
Declaration  was  read  in  but  few  churches,  and  in 
some  of  those  the  people  all  left  as  soon  as  they 
heard  the  first  words  of  it.  Seven  bishops  had  pe- 
titioned the  king  against  the  order  requiring  the 

291 


THE   TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

Declaration  to  be  read,  and  James  in  his  folly  had 
the  seven  tried  for  a  seditious  libel,  and  even  went 
so  far  as  to  imprison  them  in  the  Tower  pending  the 
trial  because  they  refused  to  give  bail.  But  it  is 
hardly  necessary  to  describe  in  detail  this  famous 
episode  in  English  history,  the  outburst  of  indigna- 
tion it  caused,  and  the  way  in  which  it  united  the 
whole  nation  against  the  king,  who  was  now  believed 
to  be  another  Bloody  Mary. 

At  the  same  time  another  event  occurred  which 
sealed  his  fate.     The  queen  gave  birth  to  a  son,  and 
the  people,  seeing  before  them  at  least  another  gen- 
eration of  papal  despotism,  were  ready  for  revolu- 
tion.    Russell  and  Henry  Sydney  formed  the  plan 
of  bringing  over  William,  the   Protestant  Prince  of 
Orange,  who  had    married  James's  daughter.     He 
landed  in   England  that  same  year  and  took    the 
throne  almost  without  opposition.     James,  deserted 
by  his  army,  navy,  and  court,  threw  the  Great  Seal 
into  the  Thames  and  fled  to  France,  where  he  lived 
the  rest  of  his  days,  a  pensioner  on  the  bounty  of 
Louis  XIV. 
^*— We  are  informed  in  the  memoir  of  Charlewood 
j  Lawton,   already  quoted,   that    Penn    opposed    the 
/  regulation  of  the  boroughs,  and  the  depriving  them 
/  of  their  charters,  so  that  they  would  return  the  king's 
Ljiieft.-tctParliamentJ  Very  likely  he  did.     We  should 
be  sorry  to  thinkthat  with  his  principles  he  failed  to 
►pose  such  an  outrageous  piece  of  tyranny.     But 
[he  opposed  it  in  a  peculiar  way,  and  Lawton's  de- 
[scription  shows  that  Penn  opposed  in  this  case  as 
he  did  in  the  seizure  of  Magdalen  College, — first  op- 

292 


DESPOTISM   OF  JAMES   II 

[posing,  and  then  consenting  when  he  saw  opposition 

Jwas  in  vain. 

i  Penn  would  get  Lawton  to  write  him  letters  op- 
posing unpopular  measures,  and  these  letters,  being 
unsigned,  Penn  would  show  to  the  king,  appar- 
entiy  for  the  purpose  of  dissuading  the  king  from 
his  purpose.  He  also  took  Lawton  to  see  the  king, 
and  the  king  listened  to  Lawton' s  arguments.  Law- 
ton  says  he  is  convinced  that  Penn  had  no  hand  in 
setting  on  foot  the  measure  for  forcing  the  boroughs, 
and  no  doubt  this  is  true.  But  after  Lawton  had 
been  to  the  king,  and  expressed  his  mind  very 
bluntly,  Penn  came  to  him  with  a  message  that  the 
king  was  pleased  with  his  sincerity,  and  wished  to 
give  him  a  place.  "The  king,"  Penn  is  reported  to 
have  said,  "  hath  a  mind  thou  shouldst  be  in  com- 
mission of  the  peace  and  a  member  of  the  next 
Parliament,  and  a  corporation  will  be  found  where 
some  honest  gentleman  will  bring  thee  in." 

This  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  an  attempt  on 
the  part  of  the  king  to  buy  up  Lawton's  opposition, 
and  make  him  a  member  of  his  regulated  Parliament,  \ 
which  was  to  do  his  bidding ;  and  Penn  was  assisting^ 

I  in  it  and  carrying  the  message.      Lawton  rejected  "- 
the  offer  with  indignation.      "  As  to  being  a  member 
of  Parliament,  I  told  him  I  should  be  glad  if  a  regu- 
lated Parliament  did  any  good,  but  by  the  help  of 
God  I  would  never  make  one  amongst  them." 

Lawton's  memoir  praises  Penn,  and  at  the  same 
time  reveals  his  rather  unpraiseworthy  political  con- 
duct. Apparently  what  Lawton  means  is  that  Penn's 
intentions   were    honest   in   spite    of    his    conduct 

293 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

Lawton  ridiculed  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  and 
expected  that  Penn  would  not  like  him  for  it,  which 
shows  very  clearly  what  Penn's  position  was  in  regard 
to  that  instrument  But  Penn  did  not  change  his 
feeling  towards  him  ;  pressed  him  ^ain  to  take  an 
office  under  James ;  and  in  describing  this  Lawton 
shows  that  Penn  was  quite  intimate  with  the  infamous 
Jeffi'eys. 

"  But  all  that  Mr.  Penn  replied  upon  hearing  both  was  that  I  was 
an  honest  man,  but  would  go  my  own  way ;  and  instead  of  growing 
colder,  offered  me,  the  very  next  time  he  came  down  into  the  country, 
to  bring  my  Lord  Chancellor  Jefferies,  who  did  not  (tho'  he  went  him- 
self too  much  in  with  the  court)  mislike  a  man  for  being  stiff  for  the 
Church  of  England,  to  junket,  as  Mr.  Penn  called  it,  one  evening ; 
and  Mr.  Penn  again  pressed  me  to  come  into  Parliament,  and  the 
commission  of  the  peace;  I  declined  both."  (Memoirs,  Penna.  Hist 
Soc,  vol.  iii.  part  ii.  p.  230.) 

Penn  and  Jeffreys  were  evidently  working  hard  to 
gather  in  Lawton  to  the  side  of  King  James.  As  to 
Lawton  and  Penn  associating  in  a  friendly  manner 
with  such  a  man  as  Jeffreys,  that  would  not  have 
been  much  thought  of  then,  because  cruelty  and  no- 
torious oppression  and  corruption  by  a  judge  were 
not  so  shocking  as  they  have  since  become.  Jef- 
freys's  reputation  has  grown  worse  with  time.  The 
people  of  his  day  thought  him  a  very  wrong-headed 
man  ;  but  they  would  probably  read  with  surprise 
the  modern  frantic  denunciations  of  him. 
^  As  to  the  imprisonment  of  the  seven  bishops, 
I  Lawton  assures  us  that  Penn  was  from  the  first  op- 
V^osed  to  their  commitment,  and  on  the  day  when  the 
king's  son  was  born  he  went  to  the  king  "and  pressed 
him  exceedingly  to  set  them  at  liberty,"  as  an  act 

294 


DESPOTISM  OF  JAMES  II 


which  would  be  so  popular  with  the  people  thatthej 
good-will  towards  the  king  might  be  restored.  >  But 
James  had  for  advisers  the  Jesuits,  who  were  deter- 
mined through  him  to  establish  the  papacy  in  Eng- 
land. They  failed,  as  their  methods  in  the  long  run 
have  usually  failed,  and  they  ruined  James.  Was 
it  not,  however,  entirely  natural  that  Penn  should  be 
thought  to  be  one  of  them.  His  protests  against  the 
measures  of  the  king  were  in  secret  and  known  only 
to  a  few  of  his  friends.  Before  the  public  and  the 
world  he  stood  as  at  best  the  mediator  who  was  try- 

I  ing  to  make  the  king's  measures  palatable  to  the 
people  ;  and  most  people  very  naturally  inferred  that 

I  he  inspired  and  approved  of  those  measures. 

f  They  soon  discovered  that  James  had  sent  him  to 
the  Prince  of  Orange  to  persuade  that  prince  to 
agree  that  the  tests  that  kept  the  papists  out  of 
office  should  be  removed,  and  they  discovered  also 
that  he  was  the  author  of  the  anonymous  pamphlet 
already  mentioned,  **  Good  Advice  to  the  Church  of 
England,"  in  which  he  advocated  the  removal  of  the 
tests  and  laughed  at  the  fears  of  papal  supremacy 
as  childish.  Thousands  of  people  in  England  were 
then  as  thoroughly  convinced  that  Penn  was  a 
Jesuit  in  disguise  as  we  are  now  to  the  contrary. 
He  had  taken  orders,  they  said,  in  Rome,  where  he 

I  had  been  granted  a  dispensation  to  marry,  and  he 
had  since  then  frequently  officiated  as  a  priest  in 
the  celebration  of  the  mass  at  Whitehall,  St.  James's, 
and  other  places  in  England.     If  we  had  lived  then, 

i  we  should  probably  have  had  the  same  opinion  they 
held ;  for  the  Jesuits  at  that  time  were  not  the  com- 

295 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

paratively  insignificant  and  harmless  body  they  have 
since  become. 

They  pervaded  the  political  and  social  life  of  all 
Europe.  Their  methods  and  purposes  were  then 
rapidly  reaching  that  enormity  for  which  they  were 
afterwards  expelled  from  every  country  of  Europe, 
and  for  a  time  from  the  Roman  church  itself  They 
adopted  every  imaginable  form  of  disguise.  Some 
became  Baptist  or  Puritan  preachers,  some  were 
gay,  swearing  cavaliers  ;  some  became  domestic  ser- 
vants. They  were  the  most  learned,  astute,  untiring, 
and  unscrupulous  of  men.  Their  disguises  were  so 
perfect  and  in  many  cases  so  dramatic  that  the 
people  had  grown  accustomed  to  look  for  them  in 
the  most  unexpected  forms  and  places.  It  would 
be  just  like  one  of  them  to  take  the  role  of  the  most  { 
strenuous  advocate  of  religious  liberty  in  England, 
to  be  the  sort  of  man  in  every  way  that  Penn  was,  and 
in  that  guise,  along  with  private  intimacy  with  the 
king,  secure  the  abolition  of  the  tests  and  let  all  his 
brother  Jesuits  into  power.  ' 

In  the  autumn  of  1688,  a  few  weeks  before  the 
Prince  of  Orange  landed  at  Torbay  to  drive  James 
from  the  throne,  these  suspicions  against  Penn  be- 
came so  wide-spread  that  some  of  his  friends  tried 
to  save  him  from  them  by  giving  him  a  chance  to 
contradict  them  in  writing  and  explain  his  relations  j 
with  the  king.  William  Popple,  secretary  of  the  ■ 
Privy  Council's  Committee  on  Trade  and  Planta- 
tions, wrote  him  a  long,  formal,  but  beautiful  letter, 
asking  him,  in  the  gentlest  and  most  friendly  manner, 
if  he  was  aware  of  the  condition  in  which  he  stood. 

296 


DESPOTISM  OF  JAMES  II 

The  consciousness  of  innocence,  Popple  said,  was 
giving  him  too  great  a  contempt  for  slanders.  It 
was  possible  to  be  too  serene  and  sublime.  An  un- 
swerving prosecution  of  an  honest  purpose  was  well, 
but  at  the  same  time  a  man  should  guard  his  repu- 
tation. He  was  deep  in  intimacy  with  a  king  who 
was  believed  by  the  whole  kingdom  to  be  establish- 
ing popery  by  force  as  the  national  religion.  He 
had  so  great  a  part  in  the  councils  of  that  king  that 
it  was  difficult  for  people  to  suppose  he  was  anything 
but  an  absolute  papist.  "  Your  post  is  too  consider- 
able," said  Popple,  "  for  a  papist  of  an  ordinary  form, 
and  therefore  you  must  be  a  Jesuit." 

He  was  offering  a  most  melancholy  prospect  to  his 
friends,  for  he  was  giving  his  enemies  the  opportu- 
nity they  desired  of  destroying  him.  The  aspersion 
of  Jesuitism  that  had  been  cast  upon  him  was  off- 
setting the  benefit  of  all  his  efforts  in  the  great  cause 
of  liberty  of  conscience,  the  cause  to  which  he  had 
devoted  his  life. 

"  It  has  weakened  the  force  of  your  endeavors,  obstructed  their 
effect,  and  contributed  greatly  to  disappoint  this  poor  nation  of  that 
inestimable  happiness,  and  secure  establishment,  which  I  am  per- 
suaded you  designed,  and  which  all  good  and  wise  men  agree,  that  a 
just  and  inviolable  liberty  of  conscience  would  infallibly  produce. 
I  heartily  wish  this  consideration  had  been  sooner  laid  to  heart  and 
that  some  demonstrative  evidence  of  your  sincerity  in  the  profession 
you  make  had  accompanied  all  your  endeavors  for  liberty." 

In  his  reply  to  this  letter  Penn  laid  aside  the  set 
phraseology  of  his  sect,  and  wrote  in  that  plain  but 
soft  and  pleasant  English  he  could  at  times  com-     ;^  ^/O^ 
mand.     He  denied,  of  course,  in  the  fullest  and  most 

297 


^.-v. 


K 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

detailed  manner,  that  he  was  a  papist  or  a  Jesuit,  and 
he  denied  each  one  of  the  particular  instances  of 
Jesuitism  brought  against  him  :  his  officiating  as  a 
priest,  his  dispensation  to  marry,  or  his  having  kid- 
napped one  formerly  a  monk  out  of  Pennsylvania  to 
deliver  him  over  to  his  enemies  in  England. 

"  The  only  reason  that  I  can  apprehend,  they  have  to  repute  me  a 
Roman  Catholic,  is  my  frequent  going  to  Whitehall,  a  place  no  more 
forbid  to  me  than  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  who  yet,  it  seems,  find 
much  fairer  quarter.  I  have  almost  continually  had  one  business  or 
other  there  for  our  Friends,  whom  I  ever  served  with  a  steady  solici- 
tation through  all  times  since  I  was  of  their  communion.  I  had  also 
a  great  many  personal  good  offices  to  do,  upon  a  principle  of  charity, 
for  people  of  all  persuasions  ;  thinking  it  a  duty  to  improve  the  little 
interest  I  had  for  the  good  of  those  that  needed  it,  especially  the 
poor.  I  must  add  something  of  my  own  affairs,  too,  though  I  must 
own,  if  I  may  without  vanity,  that  they  have  ever  had  the  least  share 
of  my  thoughts  or  pains,  or  else  they  would  not  have  still  depended 
as  they  yet  do." 

Then  he  goes  on  to  tell  why  he  likes  King  James 
and  believes  in  him.  Cannot,  he  asks,  "  a  Protestant 
dissenter  be  dutiful,  thankful,  and  serviceable  to  the 
king  though  he  be  of  the  Roman  Catholic  com- 
munion. We  hold  not  our  property  or  protection 
from  him  by  our  persuasion,  and  therefore  his  per- 
suasion should  not  be  the  measure  of  our  allegiance." 
This  was  a  most  extraordinary  sentence  to  write  in 
view  of  recent  events.  The  king's  persuasion  was 
leading  him  to  violate  property  in  the  most  outra- 
geous manner.  He  was  taking  the  colleges  of  the 
Church  of  England  away  from  their  lawful  owners  to 
give  them  to  papists.  He  was  compelling  towns  to 
surrender  their  charters  so  that  he  might  turn  them 

298 


DESPOTISM  OF  JAMES  II 

over  to  papist  officials.  He  was  packing  Parlia- 
ment by  bribery  and  corruption  that  it  might  turn 
over  to  papists  the  livings,  church  buildings,  and 
other  property  of  the  Church  of  England.  Re- 
ligious persuasion  was  becoming  very  closely  con- 
nected with  property  rights  and  allegiance. 
But  Penn  goes  on. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  see  so  many,  that  seem  fond  of  the  reformed  re- 
ligion by  their  disaffection  to  him  [the  king]  recommend  it  so  ill. 
Whatever  practices  of  Roman  Catholics  we  might  reasonably  object 
against,  and  no  doubt  but  such  there  are,  yet  he  has  disclaimed  and 
reprehended  those  ill  things  by  his  declared  opinion  against  persecu- 
tion, by  the  ease  in  which  he  actually  indulges  all  dissenters,  and  by 
the  confirmation  he  offers  in  Parliament  for  the  security  of  the  Protes- 
tant religion  and  liberty  of  conscience.  And  in  his  honor,  as  well  as 
in  my  own  defence,  I  am  obliged  in  conscience  to  say,  that  he  has 
ever  declared  to  me  it  was  his  opinion ;  and  on  all  occasions,  when 
Duke,  he  never  refused  me  the  repeated  proofs  of  it,  as  often  as  I  had 
any  poor  sufierers  for  conscience'  sake  to  solicit  his  help  for." 

This  was  certainly  a  strange  statement  for  Penn 
to  make.  It  meant  that  he  took  the  king's  word  for 
everything  and  shut  his  eyes  to  the  facts ;  took  his 
word  that  he  was  not  forcing  popery  on  colleges, 
Parliament,  government,  and  Church  of  England  ; 
calmly  looked  at  him  doing  it,  and  said  he  could  not 
see  it.  It  meant  also  that  for  the  sake  of  securing 
present  relief  to  the  Quakers  and  some  other  dis- 
senters, he  was  willing  that  the  king  should  estab- 
lish popery  in  the  Church  of  England  and  in  the 
government. 

In  another  passage  he  argues  with  rather  too  much 
subtlety  against  the  opinion  that  he  was  supporting 
the  measures  of  James. 

299 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

*'  Is  anything  more  foolish  as  well  as  false,  than  that  becaose  I  am 
often  at  Whitehall,  therefore  I  must  be  the  author  of  all  that  is  done 
there  that  does  not  please  abroad  ?  But  supposing  some  such  things 
to  have  been  done,  pray  tell  me,  if  I  am  bound  to  oppose  anything 
that  I  am  not  called  to  do.  I  never  was  a  member  of  council,  cabi- 
net, or  committee,  where  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom  are  transacted. 
I  have  had  no  office  or  trust,  and  consequently  nothing  can  be  said 
to  be  done  by  me.  .  .  .  However,  one  thing  I  know,  that  I  have 
everywhere  most  religiously  observed,  and  endeavored  in  conversa- 
tion with  persons  of  all  ranks  and  opinions,  to  allay  heats,  and 
moderate  extremes,  even  in  the  politics." 

All  this  sounds  very  pretty  and  innocent.  But  if 
he  was  so  entirely  free  from  responsibility,  and  taking 
no  part  whatever  in  the  affairs  of  James,  why  did  he 
publish  anonymously  that  pamphlet,  "  Good  Advice 
to  the  Church  of  England,"  advocating  the  abolition 
of  the  tests,  and  ridiculing  the  notion  that  James 
would  force  popery  on  the  government  ?  Why  did 
he  advise  the  fellows  of  Magdalen  to  give  up  their 
college  to  James,  on  the  ground  that  two  or  three 
colleges  would  satisfy  the  papists?  Why  was  he 
bringing  Charlewood  Lawton  to  the  king  to  have 
him  argue  against  the  king's  measures  ?  Why  was 
he  procuring  Lawton  to  write  letters  to  be  read  to 
the  king  ?  and  why  at  the  king's  request  did  he  ask 
Lawton  to  accept  an  office  which  would  compel 
Lawton  to  change  his  opinions. 

According  to  the  diary  of  Narcissus  Luttrell,  Penn 
himself  had  been  appointed  to  an  office  before  Pop- 
ple's letter  was  written.  Under  date  of  August  8, 
1688,*  Luttrell  says,  "  Mr.  Penn  the  Quaker  is  to  be 
superintendent  of  the  revenues  of  excise  and  hearth 

♦  Vol.  i.  p.  453. 
300 


DESPOTISM   OF  JAMES  11 

money,"  and  September  17,*  "Mr.  Penn  is  made 
supervisor  of  the  excise  and  hearth  money."  Penn, 
however,  in  his  letter  to  Popple  says,  '*I  have  had 
no  office  or  trust." 

But  hear  his  final  excuse,  which  I  think  shows  the 
real  cause  of  his  infatuation. 

"To  this  let  me  add  the  relation  my  father  had  to  this  king's 
service,  his  particular  favor  in  getting  me  released  out  of  the  Tower 
of  London  in  1669,  my  father's  humble  request  to  him  upon  his  death 
bed  to  protect  me  from  the  inconveniences  and  troubles  my  persuasion 
might  expose  me  to,  and  his  friendly  promise  to  do  it  and  exact  per- 
formance of  it  from  the  moment  I  addressed  myself  to  him;  I  say 
when  all  this  is  considered,  anybody,  that  has  the  least  pretence  to 
good  nature,  gratitude,  or  generosity,  must  needs  know  how  to  inter- 
pret my  access  to  the  king." 

I  know  of  no  other  explanation  than  the  above 
that  will  fully  account  for  Penn's  blind  determination 
to  stand  by  the  king  no  matter  what  he  did.  If  a 
man  was  once  his  friend,  he  never  could  let  him  go. 
Even  men,  like  some  of  those  he  appointed  deputy 
governors  of  Pennsylvania,  to  whom  he  owed  no 
gratitude,  could  not  forfeit  his  friendship  even  when 
they  were  wrecking  his  property  and  interests.  He 
would  cling  to  them  in  spite  of  everything,  dismiss 
them  at  last  only  when  compelled  to  it,  and  do  so 
with  the  greatest  regret.  But  in  the  case  of  those 
to  whom  he  felt  bound  by  gratitude,  and  such  life- 
long gratitude  as  bound  him  to  King  James,  it  was 
simply  impossible  and  out  of  the  question  for  him  to 
see  any  fault  in  them.  His  sense  of  gratitude  and] 
affection  in  such  cases  was  a  more  consuming  passion  [• 
than  his  devotion  to  religious  liberty.  

*  vol.  i.  p.  461. 
301 


XIX 

SUSPICIONS,    CONSPIRACIES,    AND    HIDING 

The  five  years  following  that  autumn  of  1688, 
when  James  II.  fled  to  France,  were  a  sad  time 
for  Penn ;  but  his  biographers,  in  their  account  of 
this  period,  have  not  dealt  honestly  with  their  read- 
ers. In  the  hope  of  exalting  their  hero  they  have 
obscured  and  confused  the  evidence  and  omitted 
parts  of  it,  as  they  pleased.  This  method,  however, 
is  apt  to  be  more  of  an  injury  than  an  advantage, 
for  when  the  truth  comes  out  it  seems  disgraceful 
from  the  attempt  at  concealment  For  my  own  part, 
I  cannot  see  that  there  was  anything  to  conceal,  and 
I  think  Penn's  reputation  has  been  seriously  injured 
by  the  disingenuous  way  in  which  this  part  of  his 
life  has  been  treated.  _ 

Penn  did  not  believe  in  William  III.  or  in  the 
revolution  of  1688,  which  brought  him  to  the  throne. 
His  whole  course  of  conduct  proves  this  most  clearly, 
and  I  cannot  see  the  slightest  use  in  attempting  to 
deny  or  conceal  his  position.  He  believed,  on  the 
contrary,  in  James  11. ,  whom  he  personally  liked, 
whom  he  supported  to  the  last,  and  whom  he  would 
have  been  glad  to  have  had  come  back  and  displace 
King  William.  He  always  insisted  on  believing  that 
there  would  be  more  toleration  and  liberty  under 

302 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

James  than  under  William.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
this  was  his  opinion.  But  it  was  merely  a  political 
opinion,  and  there  is  no  necessity  for  assuming,  as 
his  biographers  do,  that  it  was  an  infamous  crime 
which  must  be  kept  in  the  background.  It  was  not 
a  crime  at  all.  It  was  merely  a  mistake,  a  political 
mistake,  from  our  point  of  view.  There  were  many 
who  thought  it  not  even  a  mistake. 

Penn  has  not  told  us  what  he  thought  and  felt 
when  his  royal  friend  and  benefactor,  the  friend 
of  his  father,  fled  the  country.  That  flight  left  him 
in  a  very  awkward  situation.  There  were  several 
courses  he  could  pursue.  He  could  follow  his  royal 
friend  to  France,  make  one  of  his  court  there,  at  the 
palace  Louis  XIV.  gave  him  to  live  in,  and  assist  him 
in  making  war  on  England  to  win  back  his  crown. 
But  that  would  not  have  been  Quaker-like  ;  it  would 
have  been  inconsistent  with  Penn's  life-long  position 
as  protector  and  representative  of  his  sect  in  Eng- 
land ;  and  what  would  have  become  of  Pennsylva- 
nia, forfeited  to  the  crown  for  the  treason  of  its  pro- 
prietor. It  was  necessary,  it  would  seem,  for  him  to 
stay  at  home  ;  and  if  he  stayed  at  home,  what  should 
he  do? 

Most  of  those  who  had  been  friends  of  James, 
and  had  decided  to  stay  at  home,  went  quickly  to 
William  and  made  their  peace  with  him,  promised 
to  serve  him,  to  be  his  friend  and  James's  enemy, 
and  they  were  given  places  in  his  household  and 
government  Macaulay  and  other  writers  have  given 
us  amusing  descriptions  of  the  sudden  way  in  which 
these  distinguished  men  changed  their  aflections  and 

303 


1 


n1/ 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

opinions  and  fell  on  their  knees  before  the  new 
monarch.  But  Penn  was  not  one  of  them.  He  was 
incapable  of  that  sort  of  thing. 

He  had  never  liked  William  ;  and  he  did  not  be- 
lieve that  he  would  establish  religious  liberty.  In 
his  pamphlet,  "A  Persuasive  to  Moderation,"  written 
in  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  James,  Penn  speaks 
of  the  growing  power  of  William  as  "an  ebb  to 
the  strength"  of  Holland.  He  was  evidently  one 
of  those  who  thought  William  was  a  mere  self- 
seeker,  so  infatuated  with  the  pursuit  of  glory  that 
he  would  be  an  injury  to  both  Holland  and  England. 
Penn  liked  him  no  better  when  he  marched  into 
London  over  the  fallen  hopes  and  fortunes  of  his 
friend  James.  To  say  that  he  did  not  rush  to  him 
with  the  others  and  tell  him  a  pack  of  sycophantic 
lies  may  seem  like  small  praise,  but  in  that  age  of 
rebellions  and  revolutions,  when  public  men  were 
constantly  shifting  their  ground,  it  is  more  to  Penn's 
credit  than  we  might  at  first  suppose. 

Penn  could  have  stayed  at  home  as  some  did  and 
plot  for  the  restoration  of  James.  But  that  was  a 
dangerous  game.  It  would  also  have  been  incon- 
sistent with  Quaker  principles  and  inconsistent  with 
Penn's  long  announced  position,  that  he  was  a  medi- 
ator and  not  an  active  participant  in  politics,  one 
whose  mission  was  to  soften  the  violence  of  rebels 
and  of  partisans  in  the  interest  of  peace. 

There  was,  therefore,  only  one  course  left  that  he 
could  take,  and  that  was  to  stay  at  home,  follow  his 
usual  avocations  so  far  as  possible,  neither  toady  to 
William  nor  plot  to  restore  James,  and  at  the  same 

304 


/r--  r-^^tM 

(^Wf'i--''^ 

') 

WILLIAM    III 


I 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

time  admit  that  James  was  still  his  friend,  and  that 
he  did  not  believe  in  the  revolution  which  had  de- 
prived him  of  the  crown.     This  was  a  difficult  posi- 
tion to  maintain,  because  ordinary  minds  would  not 
believe  in  its  sincerity.     They  would  insist  that  he  ' 
must  be  plotting ;  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
stay  at  home  and  be  the  friend  of  James  and  not  , 
plot  for  his  return.     Nevertheless,  this  difficult  course 
is,  I  think,  the  one  Penn  laid  out  for  himself,  and  the  ! 
reader  must  form  his  own  opinion  as  to  how  closeljy 
he  lived  up  to  it. 

On  the  loth  of  December,  1688,  soon  after  William  1 
III.  entered  London,  Penn  was  arrested  while  walk-  \ 
ing,  it  is  said,  in  Whitehall,  the  place  where  he  had  ' 
carried  on  his  courtier  occupations    under  James, 
and  where  he  was  probably  now  trying  to  attend  to 
some  of  the  remains  of  that  business.      He  was  taken 
immediately  before  the  Privy  Council,   which  was 
then  sitting,  and  in  answer  to  questions  he  is  reported 
to  have  said, — 

"  He  had  done  nothing  but  what  he  could  answer  before  God  and 
all  the  princes  in  the  world ;  that  he  loved  his  country  and  the 
Protestant  religion  above  his  life,  and  had  never  acted  against  either ; 
that  all  he  had  ever  aimed  at  in  his  public  endeavors  was  no  other 
than  what  the  prince  himself  had  declared  for  [religious  liberty]  ; 
that  King  James  had  always  been  his  friend,  and  his  father's  friend  ; 
and  that  in  gratitude  he  himself  was  the  king's,  and  did  ever,  as 
much  as  in  him  lay,  influence  him  to  his  true  interest." 

This  statement  seems  to  have  satisfied  the  king.]/ 
It  will  be  observed  that  there  is  not  a  word  of  flat- 
tery or  even  compliment  to  WiUiam,  or  a  promisg 
of  allegiance  to  him.      He  was  the  sort  of  king, 
ao  305 


>K 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN  /■ 

however,  who  could  appreciate  such  straightforward- 
ness in  a  subject  But  Penn  was  at  that  time  under 
a  terrible  cloud  of  suspicion.  All  England  was 
screaming  Jesuit  and  papist  at  him.  It  would  be 
unwise  to  assume  at  once  that  he  would  be  a  safe 
man,  and  declare  him  innocent  in  the  face  of  the_  i 
popular  clamor  against  him.  So  he  was  compelled 
to  give  security  for  his  appearance  the  first  day  of 
the  next  term.  When  he  appeared  at  the  ap- 
pointed time,  his  case  was  continued  to  Easter  term, 
and  then,  no  witnesses  appearing  against  him,  he 
was  discharged.  / 

Soon  afterwards,  in  the  year  1688,  the  Parliament^ 
passed  the  famous  Toleration  Act  which  William 
had  promised  when  he  announced  that  he  had  come 
to  drive  James  from  the  throne.  This  act  estab- 
lished religious  liberty  by  law.  All  dissenters  ex- 
cept Roman  Catholics  and  Unitarians  were  given 
the  right  to  worship  as  they  pleased ;  but  they 
must  take  out  licenses  for  their  meeting-houses  or 
chapels,  take  the  oath  of  allegiance,  and  not  worship 
behind  closed  doors,  a  precaution  considered  neces- 
sary at  that  time  to  prevent  plots  against  the  gov- 
ernment The  Quakers  were  allowed  to  affirm  in- 
stead of  taking  an  oath.  But  the  test  oaths  which 
kept  the  Roman  Catholics  and  all  other  dissenters 
from  holding  office  were  retained  as  a  safeguard, 
proved  by  terrible  experience  to  be  necessary  in 
that  age. 

That  was  the  end  of  religious  persecution  in  Eng- 
land. From  that  date  to  this  the  British  people 
have  enjoyed  the  fullest  liberty  in  worship,  and  the 

306 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

tests  which  kept  the  Roman  Catholics  and  other 
dissenters  out  of  office  have  been  slowly  relaxed  as 
the  desire  of  the  Roman  church  for  seizing  political 
power  became  less  earnest  and  its  ability  to  attain 
that  end  was  weakened. 

So  the  great  object  of  Penn's  life  was  accom- 
plished, and  by  whom  ?  Not  by  his  life-long  friend 
James,  from  whom  apparently  he  expected  it,  but  by 
James's  implacable  enemy,  William,  the  Dutchman. 
What  Penn  had  been  trying  to  accomplish  through 
despotic  declarations  of  indulgence,  and  what  he 
beheved  would  never  be  accomplished  in  any  other 
way  was  now  suddenly  accomplished  for  all  time 
by  an  honest  law  passed  by  Parliament  without  any 
attempt  at  despotism. 

Penn's  biographers  at  this  point  usually  introduce 
a  few  conventional  sentences  to  the  effect  that  this 
great  constitutional  change  must  have  been  highly 
gratifying  to  one  who  had  labored  so  long  to  that 
end,  and  so  on.     Clarkson  goes  so  far  as  to  assert^l 
that  Penn  was  really  the  author  of  the  Toleration  | 
Act,  and  had  convinced  William  of  the  necessity  of  I 
it    This  is,  of  course,  ridiculous,  for  William  got  his  \ 
notions  of  liberty  without  any  aid  from  Penn. 

Dixon  says  that  Penn  was  very  much  pleased  with 
the  results  of  the  Toleration  Act.  But  this  is  again 
mere  assumption,  for^enn  was  entirely  silent  on  the 
sphject,  There  is  not  a  word  of  his  that  can  be  quoted 
for  or  against  it.  It  may  be  that  he  thought  it  well 
enough  so  far  as  it  went,  but  laboring  under  the  de- 
lusion that  James  and  the  Jesuits  would  have  been 
contented  with  a  few  colleges  and  a  few  offices,  he 

307 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

«      would  have  preferred  that  the   tests    be  repealed, 
and  a  freedom  in  office-holding  allowed,  which  has 
scarcely  yet  been    attained  in  England.     Or,  more 
a  likely,  he  was  so  firm  in  his  affection  and  friendship 

S  for  James  that  he  could  not  be  enthusiastic  about 

this  great  boon    of  liberty  because    it   came  from 
James's  detestable  enemy. 

Besides  the  Toleration  Act,  Parliament  passed  a 
few  months  later  what  has  ever  since  been  known  as 
— ;r  the  Bill  of  Rights,  a  famous  document,  which,  after 
/  describing  all  the  sins  of  James's  despotism,  proceeds 
to  abolish  and  make  them  odious.  No  king  shall 
ever  again  suspend  or  dispense  with  a  law  on  any 
pretext,  or  prosecute  a  citizen  or  bishop  for  petition- 
ing, or  create  by  his  own  authority  an  ecclesiastical 
court,  or  levy  taxes,  or  keep  a  standing  army  with- 
out the  consent  of  Parliament,  or  pack  juries,  or 
Parliaments.  Freedom  of  speech  in  Parliament 
must  never  again  be  interfered  with  ;  nor  shall  any 
future  king  disarm  Protestants  while  allowing  papists 
to  retain  their  arms,  nor  grant  away  to  his  favor- 
ites the  fines  and  forfeitures  of  persons  accused  of 
crimes  ;  nor  shall  there  be  any  more  excessive  bail 
or  fines,  or  cruel  and  illegal  punishments.  That 
these  things  may  be  the  more  secure,  frequent  Par- 
liaments shall  be  held  ;  and  that  they  may  be  doubly 
secure,  the  British  crown  shall  never  again  descend 
to  a  person  who  is  not  a  Protestant. 

This  document  was  really  a  sort  of  British  Decla- 
ration of  Independence,  and  modern  England  has 
grown  up  under  it  jTfhe  reforms  which  it  established\ 
were  the  very  ones  for  which  Penn  in  his  younger  ] 

308  ' 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

days  had  ardently  contended  ;  and  it  is  a  sad  reflec- 
tion that  he  was  now  so  infatuated  with  Jacobitism 
that  he  could  scarcely  appreciate  thenir^\ 

During  the  remainder  of  the  year  1689  and  un- 
til the  spring  of  1690  he  was  undisturbed  by  the 
government,  and  during  that  time  he  was  probably 
living  in  the  country  at  Worminghurst     But  during 
this  period  there  is  some  evidence  of  an  expression 
of  opinion  on  his  part  which  Macaulay  considers  as 
evidence  that  he  was  plotting  to  restore  James  and 
doing  "  everything  in  his  power  to  bring  a  foreign      ^ 
army  into  the  heart  of  his  own  country."     The  only       j 
evidence  Macaulay  has  is  a  letter  written  by  Avaux,      ( 
the   French  ambassador,    to    Louis  XIV.,  June    5, 
1689,  in  which  Avaux  says  that  he  encloses  some 
notes  of  news  from  England  and  Scotland,  and  then      ^ 
adds  that  the  beginning  of  his  news  from  England 
is  taken  from  a  letter  written  by  Penn,  the  original 
of  which  he  has  seen.     In  the  notes  enclosed  the 
news  relating  to  England  taken  from  Penn's  letter  is 
merely  to  the  effect  that  the  Prince  of  Orange  begins 
to  be  disgusted  with  the  English,  and  the  aspect  of 
affairs  is  changing  rapidly,  as  is  the  way  with  these 
islanders,  and  that  the  prince's  health  is  bad. 

Macaulay  assumes  that  Penn  sent  this  letter  to 
James.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  did.  Avaux^ 
does  not  say  so.  The  letter  may  have  been  written 
to  anybody,  and  what  it  says  was  well  known, — 
namely,  that  William's  health  was  bad,  that  the 
people  were  not  so  enthusiastic  for  him  as  they  had 
been,  and  that  he  was  becoming  disgusted  with 
them.     Penn,  or  anybody,  William's  best  friend  or 

309 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

William  himself,  might  have  written  such  statements. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  of  a  plot  in 
them. 

In  the  spring  of  1690,  however,  the  government 
intercepted  a  letter  from  James,  asking  Penn  "to 
come  to  his  assistance  in  the  present  state  and  con- 
dition he  was  in,  and  express  the  resentments  of  his 
favor  and  benevolence."  This  was  very  serious,  and 
Penn  was  ordered  to  appear  before  the  Privy  Council. 
Our  authority  for  what  happened  on  that  occasion  is  i 
Gerard  Croese's  "  General  History  of  the  Quakers," 
published  in  1696. 

*'  Upon  this,  Penn  being  cited  to  appear,  was  asked  why  King 
James  wrote  unto  him,  he  answered  he  could  not  hinder  such  a  thing. 
Being  further  questioned  what  resentments  these  were  which  the  late 
king  seemed  to  desire  of  him,  he  answered  he  knew  not,  but  said  he 
supposed  King  James  would  have  him  to  endeavor  his  restitution, 
and  that  though  he  could  not  decline  the  suspicion,  yet  he  could 
avoid  the  guilt,  and  since  he  had  loved  King  James  in  his  prosperity 
he  should  not  hate  him  in  his  adversity,  yea  he  loved  him  as  yet  for 
many  favors  he  had  conferred  on  him,  though  he  would  not  join  with 
him  in  what  concerned  the  state  of  the  kingdom.  He  owned  he  had  > 
been  much  obliged  to  King  James,  and  that  he  would  reward  his  kind-  1 
ncss  by  any  private  office  as  far  as  he  could,  observing  inviolably  and 
entirely  that  duty  to  the  public  and  government  which  was  equally 
incumbent  upon  all  subjects,  and  therefore  that  he  had  never  the 
vanity  to  think  of  endeavoring  to  restore  him  that  crown  which  was 
fallen  from  his  head,  so  that  nothing  in  that  letter  could  at  all  seem 
to  fix  guilt  upon  him."     (Croese,  p.  113.) 

This  was  certainly  a  very  frank  and  honest  state- 
ment, and   it  describes  the  very  wise  position  of 
friendly  neutrality  between  William  and  James  which 
Penn  intended  to  maintain.     The  letter  James  wrotej 
was  not  by  itself  conclusive  evidence  of  plotting  on  I 

310 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

the  part  of  Penn,  for,  as  he  said,  he  could  not  pre-j 
vent  the  banished  king  from  writing  to  him.         ^s^ 

In  the  biography  by  Besse  prefixed  to  Penn's 
Works,  we  are  told  that  when  first  brought  before 
the  council  on  this  occasion,  Penn  asked  to  be  heard 
in  the  presence  of  the  king,  and  this  request  was 
granted.  The  examination  lasted,  it  is  said,  two 
hours  ;  and  a  great  deal  must  have  been  said  in  that 
time  ;  but  Besse  gives  no  report  of  it,  nor  does  he 
mention  or  refer  in  any  way  to  the  report  which  we 
have  quoted  as  given  by  Croese.  Possibly  Penn 
may  have  told  some  one  the  substance  of  his  an- 
swers to  the  king  and  council,  and  Croese  may  have 
heard  it  at  second  or  third  hand.  Besse  goes  on  to 
say  that  after  the  two  hours'  examination  William 
was  inclined  to  acquit  Penn  entirely,  but  to  please 
some  of  the  council  he  was  held  upon  bail  for  a 
while,  and  in  Trinity  term  of  the  same  year  dis- 
charged. 

Croese  is  not  the  best  sort  of  authority ;  but  as  he 
and  Besse  were  contemporaries  of  Penn,  I  am  en- 
tirely willing  to  accept  what  they  say.  But  there  I 
draw  the  line.  Clarkson,  who  wrote  in  1814,  says 
that  Penn  was  arrested  on  that  occasion  '*  by  a  body 
of  military ;"  but  Croese  says  only  that  he  was 
cited  to  appear,  and  Besse  that  he  was  brought 
before  the  council.  In  Dixon's  biography,  written 
in  1856,  Clarkson's  body  of  military  becomes  a 
band  of  military  which  "  one  day  beset  his  house 
and  placed  him  under  arrest ;"  and  instead  of  quoting 
what  Croese  says  of  the  examination,  which  is  all  we 
know  of  it,  Dixon  paraphrases  it  into  a  very  dra- 

3" 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

matic  conversation,  stating  at  one  point,  "  The  Lords 
were  startled  at  this  frank  interpretation ;"  and  again, 
"William  was  struck  with  a  defence  so  unusual." 
There  would  be  no  harm  in  Dixon  using  his  imagi- 
nation, if  he  would  warn  the  reader  of  it ;  but  he 
states  his  suppositions  and  guesses  as  if  they  were 
facts  of  the  examination  ;  and  this  is  not  the  only- 
episode  of  Penn's  life  which  has  been  developed  in 
this  way. 

In  the  summer  of  this  year,  1690,  James  invaded 
Ireland  with  an  army,  and  William  went  there  to 
meet  him.  The  French  admiral,  having  beaten  the 
combined  Dutch  and  English  fleets,  was  hovering  off 
the  coast.  Queen  Mary  was  left  alone  in  London  to 
govern  as  best  she  could  ;  and  as  the  plots  for  the 
overthrow  of  herself  and  her  husband  thickened, 
Penn  was  suspected,  along  with  Lord  Clarendon, 
Lord  Preston,  and  about  fifteen  others.  He  was  ar- 
rested by  proclamation,  July  18,  1690,  and  remained 
many  months  in  prison  until  tried  at  the  close  of  the 
year.  Several  of  those  arrested  with  him  were  con- 
victed, and  one  of  them  was  executed,  but  he  him- 
self was  acquitted.  Lord  Preston,  who  turned  state's 
evidence,  seems  to  have  had  nothing  against  him 
except  conversations,  in  which  Penn  had  mentioned 
long  lists  of  persons  who  were  friendly  to  King  James. 
Such  statements,  of  course,  amounted  to  nothing. 
,^  Penn,  being  friendly  to  James,  and  disliking  Wil- 
liam, often,  I  have  no  doubt,  spoke  of  those  who 
favored  James's  return.  He  would  not,  as  I  have 
already  said,  assist  actively  in  accomplishing  that 
return  ;  but  from  all  his  previous  conduct  and  words 

312 


/  1 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

/  I  think  we  can  say  he  would  have  been  glad  to  see 
it  accomplished.  He  naturally  often  spoke  favor- 
ably of  James,  and  spies  and  informers  might  easily 
construe  his  words  as  evidence  of  a  plot 

It  had  now  become  evident  that  William,  in  be- 
coming king,  had  other  purposes  to  accomplish  be- 
sides delivering  England  from  a  t}'rant.  He  intended 
to  use  England  in  an  alliance  with  the  Protestant 
powers  to  crush  France.  The  war  was  already  begin- 
ning, and  the  English  people  foresaw  the  expenses 
of  a  great  army  with  increased  taxation.  This 
alienated  not  a  few  friends  of  William,  who  had  as- 
sisted in  bringing  him  to  the  throne.  We  would 
naturally  suppose  that  it  would  alienate  Penn  more 
than  ever,  and  he  would  naturally  be  brought  into 
association  with  those  who,  like  himself,  were  friendly 
to  James.  He  could  not  very  well  avoid  talking  to 
them  ;  some  of  them  might  be  plotting  for  his  old 
friend's  return  ;  and  from  his  association  with  such 
people  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  government  often 
suspected  him. 

But  for  a  short  time  after  his  trial,  at  the  close  of\ 
1690,  the  government  seems  to  have  been  satisfied 
that  he  was  altogether  innocent  of  plotting,  for  al- 
most immediately  after  the  trial  the  secretary  of  state 
granted  him  an  order  for  a  convoy  to  take  him  to 
Pennsylvania.  He  published  proposals  for  settlers, 
a  number  of  whom  he  intended  to  take  with  him, 
and  he  was  soon  to  depart.  But  George  Fox  died 
on  the  13th  of  January,  and  on  the  i6th  Penn 
preached  at  his  funeral.  Soon  after  the  ceremony 
he  learned  that  a  warrant  had  been  issued  for  him, 

313 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 


and  that  the  officers  intended  to  take  him  at  the 
funeral,  but,  mistaking  the  hour,  came  too  late. 

'"What  the  evidence  was  on  this  occasion  we  do 
not  know,  for  Penn  did  not  give  the  officerfizinother 
chance  to  take  him.  He  went  into  hiding  an  act 
which  some  of  his  biographers  have  attempted  to 
obscure  by  calling  it  "retirement,"  "living  in  seclu- 
sion," or  "  taking  private  lodgings."  But  it  is  better 
to  state  the  fact  and  truth.  No  one  now  knows 
where  he  went.  Clarkson,  however,  informs  us  with- 
out hesitation  that  he  took  "a  private  lodging  in 
London ;"  and  all  the  biographers  seem  to  be 
agreed  that  during  the  three  years  he  remained  in 
concealment  he  was  in  London  all  the  time.  Stough- 
ton  describes  the  London  of  that  day  with  its  queer 
secluded  courts  and  alleys  with  rambling,  overhang- 
ing houses,  where,  he  says,  Penn  could  have  been 
as  effectually  concealed  as  in  a  wilderness. 

But  this  is  mere  picturesque  guessing.  In  a 
letter  written  towards  the  close  of  his  concealment, 
Penn  says,  "I  have  been  above  these  three  years 
hunted  up  and  down,  and  could  never  be  allowed 
to  live  quietly  in  city  or  country."  Narcissus  Lut- 
trell,  in  his  diary,  says  that  at  one  time  during  his 
concealment,  Penn  went  to  France.  So  it  would 
seem  that  he  was  constantly  on  the  move,  and  did 
not  remain  all  the  time  in  London.  There  is  no 
doubt,  however,  that  he  was  at  times  in  London  ; 
and  he  seems  to  have  had  some  special  place  of 
concealment  there  ;  for  after  the  king  withdrew  his 
suspicions,  and  concealment  was  no  longer  neces- 
saiy,  he  says  that  he  preached  in  London  and  then 

314 


r 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 


went  "to  visit  the  sanctuary  of  my  solitude."  He 
adds,  "and  after  that  to  see  my  poor  wife  and 
children  ;  the  eldest  being  with  me  all  this  while." 

T^xactly  why  Penn  hid  himself  during  those  threes' 
years  we  shall  never  know.  Besse,  in  the  life  of  him 
already  often  referred  to,  says  that  the  warrant  had 
been  issued  on  information  furnished  by  the  notori- 
ous Fuller,  who  made  a  business,  like  Titus  Oates, 
of  accusing  prominent  people.  In  the  absence  of  a 
modem  detective  system  the  government  was  com- 
pelled to  rely  on  these  irregular  informers.  Fuller 
was  not  long  afterwards  declared,  by  Parliament,  to 
be  a  cheat  and  impostor,  and  punished.  Besse's 
statement  has  been  accepted  by  all  subsequent 
biographers  and  they  argue  that  Penn  was  unwilling 
to  take  the  chances  of  a  trial  on  evidence  furnished 
by  this  wretch,  and  so  resolved  to  escape  arrest  alto- 
gether. 

Fuller  was,  however,  not  then  known  to  be  so  in- 
famous as  he  was  afterwards  proved.  Macaulay 
points  out  that,  according  to  his  own  life  of  himself, 
he  was  not  at  that  time  in  England,  and  he  also  cites 
a  letter  written  by  Caermarthen  to  King  William, 
February  3,  saying  that  the  only  witness  against 
Penn  was  Preston.       Penn  nowhere  says   that  this  L/ 

warrant  was  based  on  Fuller's  information.     He  says      Gv^ 
that  he  was  indicted  in  Ireland  on  information  fur- 
nished by  Fuller  and  some  others  ;  but  that  was  an-      i 
other  matter.     It  should  also  be  observed  that  Fuller      ' 
was  discredited  a  few  months  after  this  warrant  for 
Penn  was  issued  ;  but  Penn  remained  in  hiding  for 
three  years.  (There  was  evidently  some  reason  for 
^ -^'' 3tt 


^J- 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

this  concealment  which  is  not  now  apparent,  and 
Fuller  seems  to  have  had  little  or  nothing  to  do 
with  JtQ 

Nothing  that  Penn  has  left  in  writing  throws  much 
light  upon  it ;  for  he  refers  to  his  concealment  only 
in  general  terms,  an  unfortunate  practice  which  he 
and  the  Quakers  indulged  in  too  much  on  many  oc- 
casions. He  had,  of  course,  to  give  up  his  voyage 
to  Pennsylvania,  and,  writing  of  it  to  the  province, 
he  says, — 

"  By  this  time  thou  wilt  have  heard  of  the  renewal  of  my  troubles, 
the  only  hinderance  of  my  return,  being  in  the  midst  of  my  prepara- 
tions with  a  great  company  of  adventurers  when  they  came  upon  me. 
The  jealousies  of  some  and  unworthy  dealings  of  others,  have  made 
way  for  them  ;  but  under  and  over  it  all  the  ancient  Rock  has  been 
my  shelter  and  comfort ;  and  I  hope  yet  to  see  your  faces  with  our 
ancient  satisfaction."     (Janney,  359.) 

In  a  letter  written  May  30,  1691,  to  the  Yearly 
Meeting  of  Quakers  in  London,  he  says, — 

"  My  privacy  is  not  because  men  have  sworn  truly,  but  falsely 
against  me ;  *  for  wicked  men  have  laid  in  wait  for  me  and  false 
witnesses  have  laid  to  my  charge  things  that  I  knew  not.'  "  (Janney, 
356.) 

This  last  quotation  would  include  an  accusation 
like  Fuller's  ;  and  yet  if  Fuller  had  been  the  cause 
he  would  probably  have  named  him  as  he  did  in 
speaking  of  the  indictment  in  Ireland.  In  the  first 
quotation  it  will  be  observed  he  refers  his  troubles 
to  "The  jealousies  of  some  and  unworthy  dealings 
of  others."  Judging  from  all  the  evidence,  which 
we  shall  have  more  in  detail  later,  it  seems  to  me 

316 


/ 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

that  the  government  had  information  about  him,  not 
merely  from  Fuller,  but  from  other  sources  which 
made  them  very  suspicious  of  him.  Their  suspi- 
cion was  not  strong  enough  to  make  them  hot  in 
his  pursuit  It  was  William's  policy  to  be  very  easy 
and  generous  with  his  enemies  unless  they  became 
decidedly  dangerous.  The  government  did  not  con- 
sider it  essential  to  the  safety  of  the  throne  to  seize 
and  try  Penn  at  once.  They  were  willing  he  should 
hide,  and  meantime  they  could  await  developments. 

Soon  after  Penn's  concealment  a  plot  was  dis-  ^--^^ 
covered  to  bring  over  King  James  in  the  absence  of 
William,  who  had  gone  to  The  Hague  to  attend  a 
conference  of  princes.  It  was  thought  that  with 
William  out  of  the  country,  only  a  small  army  left, 
and  the  people  discontented  with  the  four  millions 
of  taxes  William's  government  had  imposed,  it  would 
be  only  necessary  for  James  to  arrive  suddenly  with 
a  very  small  force  to  have  the  whole  nation  flock  to 
him  and  achieve  a  complete  revolution  in  his  favor. 
"The  men  who  laid  this  design,"  says  Burnet,  "  were 
the  Earl  of  Clarendon,  the  Bishop  of  Ely,  the  Lord 
Preston,  and  his  brother  Mr.  Graham,  and  Pen,  the 
famous  Quaker." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  first  four  were  guilty. 
Preston  was  caught  red-handed  with  the  papers  in 
his  possession.  He  saved  his  life  by  turning  state's 
evidence,  and  named  Penn,  among  others,  as  one  of 
those  in  the  plot.  The  papers  found  on  him  were 
also  believed  by  the  government  to  implicate  Penn, 
and  he  was  included  in  the  proclamation  for  the 
arrest  of  all  these  conspirators. 

317 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

Penn  may  have  had  some  remote  and  indefinite 
*'  connection  with  the  plan  ;  but  he  was  never  proved 
(^  to  have  been  guilty.  It  would  be  impossible,  how- 
ever, to  have  convinced  Burnet  and  other  adherents 
of  William,  including  Lord  Macaulay,  that  Penn  was 
not  as  guilty  as  the  others.  Burnet  adds  to  his  ac- 
count of  the  plot,  "  The  Bishop  of  Ely,  Grimes,  and 
Pen  absconded." 

Penn  from  his  hiding-place  sent  his  brother-in-law 
to  Henry  Sydney,  brother  of  his  old  deceased  friend, 
Algernon  Sydney.  Henry  Sydney,  who  was  about 
this  time  made  Lord  Romney,  had  been  very  instru- 
mental in  bringing  over  William,  and  now  stood  high 
in  his  government  He  describes  his  interview  with 
Penn  in  a  letter  to  King  William  of  February  27, 


769^. 


**  About  ten  days  ago,  Mr.  Penn  sent  his  brother-in-law,  Mr. 
Lowther,  to  me  to  let  me  know  that  he  would  be  very  glad  to  see 
me,  if  I  would  give  him  leave,  and  promise  to  let  him  return  with- 
out being  molested ;  I  sent  him  word  I  would,  if  the  queen  would 
permit  it ;  he  then  desired  me  not  to  mention  it  to  anybody  but  the 
queen ;  I  said  I  would  not :  A  Monday  he  sent  to  me  to  know  what 
time  I  'w  ould  appoint ;  I  named  Wednesday  in  the  evening,  and  ac- 
cordingly I  went  to  the  place  at  the  time,  where  I  found  him  just  as 
he  used  to  be,  not  at  all  disguised,  but  in  the  same  clothes  and  the 
same  humour  I  formerly  have  seen  him  in :  it  would  be  too  long 
for  your  Majesty  to  read  a  full  account  of  our  discourse,  but  in  short 
it  was  this,  that  he  was  a  true  and  faithful  servant  of  King  William 
and  Queen  Mary,  and  if  he  knew  anything  that  was  prejudicial  to 
them  or  their  government  he  would  readily  discover  it :  he  protested 
in  the  presence  of  God  that  he  knew  of  no  plot,  nor  did  he  believe 
there  was  any  one  in  Europe,  but  what  King  Lewis  hath  laid,  and 
he  was  of  opinion  that  King  James  knew  the  bottom  of  this  plot  as 
little  as  other  people ;  he  saith,  he  knows  your  Majesty  hath  a  great 
many  enemies ;  and  some  that  came  over  with  you,  and  some  that 
joined  you  soon  after  your  arrival,  he  was  sure  were  more  inveterate 

318 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

against  you,  and  more  dangerous  than  the  Jacobites,  for  he  saith  that 
there  is  not  one  man  amongst  them  that  hath  common  understand- 
ing. To  the  letters  that  were  found  with  my  Lord  Preston,  and  the 
paper  of  the  conference,  he  would  not  give  any  positive  answer,  but 
said  if  he  could  have  the  honor  to  see  the  king,  and  that  he  would 
be  pleased  to  believe  the  sincerity  of  what  he  saith,  and  pardon  the 
ingenuity  of  what  he  confessed,  he  would  freely  tell  everything  he 
knew  of  himself,  and  other  things  that  would  be  much  for  his 
Majesty's  service  and  interest  to  know,  but  if  he  cannot  obtain  this 
favour  he  must  be  obliged  to  quit  the  kingdom ;  which  he  is  very 
unwilling  to  do.  He  saith  he  might  have  gone  away  twenty  times 
if  he  had  pleased,  but  he  is  so  confident  of  giving  your  Majesty  sat- 
isfaction if  you  would  hear  him,  that  he  was  resolved  to  expect  your 
return  before  he  took  any  sort  of  measures.  What  he  intends  to  do, 
is  all  he  can  do  for  your  service,  for  he  can't  be  a  witness  if  he 
would,  it  being,  as  he  saith,  against  his  conscience  and  his  principles 
to  take  an  oath.  This  is  the  sum  of  our  conference,  and  I  am  sure 
your  Majesty  will  judge  as  you  ought  to  do  of  it  without  any  of  my 
reflections." 

f^  This  letter  shows  conclusively  that  there  was  other  \ 
levidence  against  Penn  besides  what  the  notorious  "^ 
Fuller  may  have  said.  Sydney  says  that  Penn  would 
give  no  positive  answer  "  to  the  letters  that  were 
found  with  my  Lord  Preston  and  the  paper  of  the 
conference."  How  far  the  letters  criminated  Penn 
we  cannot  tell.  Lord  Preston,  when  brought  before 
William  to  confess  and  save  his  life,  had  directly 
implicated  Penn,  as  we  are  informed  by  Dalrymple. 

"  He  confessed  against  the  bishops  and  Clarendon,  and  many  of 
the  known  partisans  of  the  late  king.  He  then  named  among  his 
associates  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  the  Lords  Dartmouth,  Macclesfield, 
Brandon,  and  Mr.  Pen,  the  Quaker;  and  added.  Pen  told  him,  that 
although  Lord  Dorset  and  Lord  Devonshire  had  not  attended  the 
conference,  they  were  of  the  party."  (Dalrymple's  Memoirs,  part 
ii.  book  vi.  p.  189.) 

The  conference  here  referred  to,  and  also  men- 
tioned by  Sydney  in  his  interview  with  Penn,  is  de- 

319 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

scribed  for  us  by  both  Dalrymple  and  Burnet  Some 
of  the  Whigs,  it  seems,  who  had  at  first  favored  Wil- 
liam were  now  disgusted  with  him.  He  was  worse, 
they  said,  than  James,  who  had  at  least  sacredly  re- 
spected the  habeas  corpus  law,  which  William  did 
not  respect  at  all  and  had  suspended  ;  and  they 
went  on  to  tell  how  he  had  dragged  England  into 
a  foreign  war  and  allowed  the  navy,  whose  glory 
had  been  unsullied  for  centuries,  to  be  disastrously 
defeated.  They  joined  themselves  to  some  of  the 
Tories  who  were  like-minded,  and  then  called  to 
their  aid  the  close  adherents  of  James.  A  confer- 
ence was  held  which  resulted  in  sending  Preston  and 
some  others  to  James  with  the  papers  that  were 
found  on  them  when  they  were  caught 

The  opinion  of  the  participants  in  this  conference, 
Burnet  tells  us,  was  that  if  James  were  brought 
back  France  would  be  inclined  to  oblige  rather 
than  to  conquer  England,  and  that  James  himself 
would  be  governed  by  Protestants  and  follow  Prot- 
estant and  English  interests  ;  in  other  words,  be  a 
liberal  tolerant  ruler  as  good  as  William,  and  proba- 
bly much  better.  These  are  very  much  like  Penn's 
views  expressed  on  various  occasions,  and  it  is  not 
at  all  unlikely  that  he  was  connected  in  some  way 
with  this  conference. 

His  biographers  have,  however,  carefully  obscured 
all  this  evidence  which  I  have  been  describing,  as  if 
any  connection  with  the  conference  was  a  frightful 
crime,  from  the  imputation  of  which  they  must  pro- 
tect Penn  at  all  hazards.  But  it  is  not  a  question 
of  crime,  it  is  merely  a  question  of  political  opinion. 

320 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

There  were  thousands  like  Penn  who  could  not  then 
see,  what  time  has  since  shown,  that  William  in  the 
end  would  be  the  safer  ruler  of  England.  These 
people  were  deluded  and  mistaken,  but  not  crimi- 
nals. 

To  show  their  delusion,  Dalrymple  goes  on  to  tell 
how  the  conference  proposed  that  when  Louis  XIV. 
should  start  with  his  army  and  fleet  to  help  James 
land  in  England,  he  must  first  of  all  declare  reli- 
gious liberty  in  France,  so  as  to  make  his  invasion 
of  England  seem  less  distasteful  to  English  Protes- 
tants. This  was  precisely  the  sort  of  wild  notion 
that  would  attract  Penn.  He  would  believe,  as  he 
had  often  believed  of  James's  temporary  indulgences 
of  freedom  in  England,  that  the  benefits  of  such 
liberty  to  trade,  commerce,  and  all  the  departments 
of  Hfe  would  in  a  few  weeks  become  so  apparent 
that  religious  freedom  would  be  adopted  all  over 
Europe. 

The  conference  also  proposed  that  the  French 
king  with  his  fleet  and  army  must  act  only  as  a  me- 
diator between  James  and  his  people,  and  not  as  an 
ally  of  James  to  conquer  the  English  people,  and 
that  James  must  remove  all  his  Roman  Catholic  ad- 
visers, and  publish  a  declaration  that  he  would  send 
back  the  French  fleet  and  army  as  soon  as  William'^ 
forces  should  withdraw,  and  that  he  would  refer  all 
subjects  of  dispute  to  a  free  Parliament.  In  other 
words,  the  wolf  would  be  entirely  acceptable  as 
king  of  the  sheep  if  he  would  promise  not  to  be  a 
wolf  These  were  the  same  delusions  Penn  had 
been  indulging  in  about  James  for  the  last  five  years, 

at  321 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 


and  the  conference  must  have  suited  him  exactly, 
and  had  his  full  sympathy  if  not  his  active  partici- 
pation. 

en  Penn  said  to  Sydney  that  he  knew  of  no 
plot,  nor  did  he  believe  there  was  any  except  what 
King  Louis  had  laid,  he  was  making  a  rather 
strong  statement,  at  which  some  have  smiled  and 
others  shaken  their  heads.  Macaulay  calls  it  a 
downright  lie,  and  Penn's  biographer,  Stoughton, 
admits  that  he  cannot  swallow  it.  Penn  may  have 
meant  that  he  had  no  personal  or  actual  knowledge 
of  a  plot  from  having  participated  in  it.  But  that  he 
did  not  know  of  the  existence  of  plots  and  their  gen- 
eral intention  and  methods  is  impossible  to  suppose. 
^  In  his  interview  with  Sydney  he  placed  himself 
/  in  this  position  :  that  he  was  not  plotting,  and  he 
'  knew  of  no  plot ;  he  could  explain  the  evidence 
against  him  in  a  private  interview  with  the  king,  and 
at  the  same  time  give  the  king  valuable  information, 
but  he  would  not  be  a  witness  in  a  trial  because  he 
could  not  take  an  oath.  If  not  allowed  to  explain 
himself  to  the  king,  he  would  have  to  quit  the  king- 
dom. 

This  seems  to  show  that  Penn  was  somewhat 
inclined  to  turn  state's  evidence.  He  evidently 
dreads  a  formal  trial ;  but  seems  to  have  no  fear  of 
a  direct  interview  with  King  William,  possibly  for 
the  reason  that  William  was  well  known  to  be  very 
_Jiberal  and  magnanimous  in  these  matters.  William 
was  then  in  Ireland,  and  the  interview  with  him  was 
not  granted.  Penn  remained  for  some  months  in  his 
concealment,  or  privacy,  as  he  called  it,  apparently 

322 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

unmolested.  The  concluding  words  of  Sydney's 
letter  are  obscure,  but  they  seem  to  me  to  imply 
that  he  thought  Penn  was  not  dangerous  to  the 
government. 

Two  months  afterwards  we  have  a  letter  from  \%- 

Penn  to  Sydney,  dated  "  22d  A  91,"  in  which  he 
urges  Sydney  to  prevail  with  the  king  not  to  enter- 
tain "hard  things"  of  him  which  ignorance,  art,  and 
prejudice  have  suggested."  He  asks  to  be  allowed 
to  live  quietly  anywhere  in  England  or  America. 
He  promises  to  make  no  ill  use  of  this  favor,  and 
adds  that  the  Quakers  will  be  the  pledges  of  his 
peaceful  living.  He  goes  on  in  a  very  humble  man- 
ner to  say  that  the  king  will  never  regret  granting 

this  request.     Then   he   hints  that  it  may  also   be         . 

worth  while  for  the  king  to  oblige  him,  and  not  make 
him  and  his  family  any  more  unhappy  than  they  are 
already.  He  has  gone  through  enough,  he  says,  in 
the  last  two  years  "  to  have  provoked,  it  may  be,  a 
better  man  to  a  less  peaceable  and  submissive  con- 
duct." 

This  mysterious  mingling  of  humility  and  threats 
leaves  us  more  in  the  dark  than  ever.  Penn  in  effect 
says,  if  you  continue  to  oppress  me,  I  may  be  driven 
from  my  neutral  position  and  do  you  an  injury.  He 
seems  to  have  heard  something  more  about  Wil- 
liam's disposition  towards  him,  for  he  closes  by  say- 
ing, "  I  confess  I  can  by  no  means  think  him  so 
prejudiced  or  implacable  as  some  represent  him  in 
my  affair ;"  and  then  he  adds  the  hint  and  threat, 
**  therefore  I  have  refused  all  other  offers  of  future 
safety  or  accommodation." 

323 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

Did  Penn  still  possess  some  valuable  information, 
as  he  said  in  the  interview  with  Sydney,  and  was  he 
trying  to  barter  it  for  his  future  safety  ? 

Sydney  is  reported  by  Penn  to  have  answered  that 
"  the  King  took  it  so,  as  I  should  not  have  been  dis- 
pleased to  have  heard  it"  And  later  Penn  writes 
i^        ^    again  to  Sydney. 

••  Let  me  be  believed  and  I  am  ready  to  appear ;  but  when  I  re- 
member how  they  began  to  use  me  in  Ireland  upon  corrupt  evidence 
before  this  business,  and  what  some  ill  people  have  threatened  here, 
besides  those  under  temptation,  and  the  providences  that  have  succes- 
sively appeared  for  my  preservation  under  this  retirement  I  can  not 
without  unjustifiable  presumption  put  myself  into  the  power  of  my 
enemies." 

y  This  statement  seems  to  imply  that  there  had  been 
I  some  previous  communication  which  has  not  come 
^down  to  us.  Penn  says  that  if  they  will  believe 
what  he  will  tell,  he  is  ready  to  appear.  He  was 
still  trying  to  avoid  a  trial.  He  wished  to  come 
into  the  king's  presence,  tell  him  everything  he 
knew,  and  have  that  accepted  instead  of  a  trial. 
Or,  in  other  words,  if  the  king  would  promise  him 
that  there  should  be  no  trial,  he  would  appear  and 
tell  everything.  The  rest  of  the  statement  seems  to 
mean  that  he  has  already  been  so  badly  handled 
in  Ireland  on  corrupt  evidence,  and  had  so  many 
narrow  escapes  in  England,  that  it  would  be 
foolish  to  give  himself  up  voluntarily,  and  foolish 
to  appear  in  any  way  unless  he  was  promised  in- 
demnity. The  trouble  in  Ireland  to  which  he  refers 
was  that\he  had  been  indicted  there  by  the  grand\ 
jury  for  treasonable  conspiracy,  and   although  he  3 

324 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDINi 

had  never  been  tried  on  the  indictment,  the  rents 
of  his  Irish  estates  had  been  confiscated  pending  ( 
the  trial. 

What  he  says  about  the  providences  that  have 
preserved  him  since  his  concealment  would  seem  to 
imply  that  many  things  had  happened  of  which  no 
account  has  come  down  to  us.  Indeed,  the  impres- 
sion we  obtain  from  all  we  read  of  him  at  this 
period  is  that  a  great  deal  was  going  on  between 
him  and  the  government  of  which  no  record  has 
been  preserved.  He  goes  on  to  say  in  the  letter  to 
Sydney,  just  quoted, — 

"  Let  it  be  enough  to  say  and  that  truly,  I  know  of  no  invasions  or 
insurrections,  men,  money,  or  arms,  for  them,  or  any  juncto  or  con- 
sult, for  advice  or  correspondency  in  order  to  it.  Nor  have  I  ever 
met  with  those  named  as  the  members  of  this  conspiracy,  or  prepared 
any  measures  with  them,  or  any  else  for  the  Lord's  [Sunderland  ?] 
to  carry  with  him  as  one  sense  or  judgment,  nor  did  I  know  of  his 
being  sent  for  up  for  any  such  voyage.  If  I  saw  him  a  few  days 
before  by  his  great  importunity,  as  some  say,  I  am  able  to  defend 
[myself]  from  the  imputations  cast  upon  me,  and  that  with  great  truth 
and  sincerity.  Though  in  rigor,  perhaps,  it  may  incur  the  censure 
of  a  misdemeanor,  and  therefore  I  have  no  reason  to  own  it  without,- 
an  assurance  that  no  hurt  should  ensue  to  me." 

Here  we  have,  as  it  seems,  an  instance  of  the  sort 
of  evidence  that,  without  his  being  able  to  prevent  it, 
was  accumulating  against  Penn.  As  an  old  friend 
of  James  he  could  not  help  occasionally  seeing  and 
talking  with  those  who  were  more  or  less  actively 
engaged  in  plotting  for  James's  return.  He  admits 
that  he  has  been  with  one  such  person  whom  it 
would  have  been  better  not  to  have  seen.  He  adds, 
also,  that  this  person  insisted  on  seeing  him.     At  the 

325 


THE   TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 


^  close  of  the  letter  he  says,  *'  Let  me  go  to  America 
or  be  protected  here." 

Sydney's  answer  was  that  the  king  was  in  too  great 
a  hurry  to  attend  to  this  letter,  but  he  would  bring 
--,  it  to  his  attention  again  in  Holland,  whither  he  was 
going.  Penn  says  he  wrote  a  similar  letter  to  Lady 
Reneleagh,  asking  her  to  intercede  on  his  behalf 
with  the  queen.  "What  else  can  I  do?"  he  says. 
"  I  know  false  witnesses  are  rife  against  me,  both 
here  and  in  Ireland." 

He  was  evidently  in  great  trouble,  and  not  en- 
joying the  easy  retirement  his  biographers  would 
have  us  suppose.  I  These  last  communications  with 
Sydney  and  Lady  K.eneleagh  were  presumably  in 
May  or  June.  Two  or  three  months  afterwards,  in 
September,  1691,  Narcissus  Luttrell  enters  in  his 
diary  for  the  i8th  of  that  month  that  Penn  left  Eng- 
land and  went  to  France.*  This  was  in  accordance 
\  with  what  he  had  said,  that  if  King  William  would 
not  hear  him  in  person  and  free  hin\jrom  the  danger 
f  a  trial,  he  must  leave  the  country.^ 

This  passage  in  Luttrell's  diary,  though  noticed  by 
Macaulay,  is  not  even  mentioned  by  any  of  the 
biographers  of  Penn,  nor  do  they  say  anything  of 
his  going  to  France.  If  they  think  that  Luttrell  is 
mistaken,  and  that  Penn  did  not  leave  England,  they 
should  say  so,  and  give  their  reasons.  But  to  pass 
by  in  silence  such  an  important  authority  as  Lut- 
trell is  hardly  fair  to  their  readers.     They  make  no 


♦  "  Wm  Penn  the  Quaker  is  got  off  from  Shoreham  in  Sussex  and 
gone  to  France."     (Vol.  ii.  p.  286.) 

326 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

attempt  to  explain  the  long  blank  in  Penn's  life  from 
the  summer  of  1691,  when  he  ceased  corresponding 
with  Sydney,  to  the  close  of  1693,  a  period  of  over 
two  years,  during  which  we  do  not  know  what  he  was 
doing  or  where  he  was.  They  skip  their  confiding 
readers  across  this  gulf  without  letting  them  know 
of  its  existence.  --i 

Whether  Penn  remained  any  length  of  time  in  \ 
France  we  cannot  tell.  There  is  a  letter  of  his  to 
Robert  Turner,  in  Pennsylvania,  dated  at  London, 
November  29,  1692,*  a  little  more  than  a  year  after 
Luttrell  says  he  went  to  France.  The  date  of  this 
letter  is  about  a  month  after  King  William  had  de- 
prived him  of  the  government  of  Pennsylvania  ;  and 
this  loss  may  have  brought  him  to  Lond'on.  The 
seizure  of  his  government  may  have  been  because 
the  king  had  become  more  suspicious  of  him.  That 
he  led  a  very  wandering  life  during  all  the  three 
years  of  his  concealment  we  are  compelled  to  be- 
lieve from  his  own  words  already  quoted. 

"  I  have  been  above  these  three  years  hunted  up  and  down,  and 
could  never  be  allowed  to  live  quietly  in  city  or  country."  (Janney, 
P-  367) 

These  words  are  in  a  letter  not  dated,  but  evi- 
dently, from  the  contents,  written  towards  the  end  of 
his  concealment.  The  king  and  queen,  he  says,  are 
still  against  him,  and  apparently  so  much  so  that  he 
considers  himself  still  in  danger.  If  he  could  only 
make  them  believe  that  he  was  not  working  against 
fhem,  and  that  he  would  **  sequester  himself  out  of 

*  Janney,  p.  364. 
327 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

the  way  of  having  it  in  his  power  to  offend  them/' 
*     they  would  not,  he  thinks,  be  so  violently  preju- 
diced.    But  he  cannot  convince  them  of  it,  and  so 
commits  himself  and  family  to  the  good  and  merci- 
ful God.     He   goes  on  to  tell   in   full   about   the 
indictment  against  him  in  Ireland  and  the  confisca- 
tion of  the  rents  of  his  estates  there  although  he 
had  not  been  tried. 
/"^"^Some  time  afterwards  he  appears  to  have  been  in 
j  negotiation  with  Lord  Rochester,  to  make  his  peace 
\^  for  him  with  the  king,\  for  we  have  an  undated  letter 
of  his  to  RochesteiTlrom  which  it  would  seem  that 
\      Rochester  had  asked  whether,  if  the  king  acquitted 
him,    he   would    go    to    Pennsylvania.      Penn    says 
j      he  certainly  would  go  there,  because  his  affairs  in 
that  province  are  in  a  bad  way.       But  he  cannot 
\     start  before  the  following  spring  because  he  must 
I      first  go  to  Ireland   to   recover  what  he  could  of 
his  ruined    estates  and  get  rid  of  the   indictment 
there.     Meantime,  he  will  follow  his  "own  occa- 
sions in  as  private  and  inoffensive  a  manner  as  he 
can. 

The  government  may  have  thought  it  a  good  plan 
to  get  rid  of  Penn   and  all  possible  danger  from 
him  by  making  sure  that  he  would  cross  three  thou- 
sand miles  of  ocean  to  Pennsylvania.     This  Penn 
suspected,  and  he  adds,  "I  will  not  receive  my  liberty 
to  go  as  a  condition  to  go  there,  and  be  there  as  here 
looked  upon  as  an  articled  exile." 
■^^^^^^^  But  the  end  of  his  troubles  was  near.     Towards 
^J^ne  close  of  the  year  1693   the  government  began 
^r      to  consider  him  as  no  longer  dangerous.    Several  of 

328 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

the  noblemen  to  whom  he  had  already  several  times 
appealed — Rochester,  Reneleagh,  and  Sydney — now 
interceded  for  him  with  the  king,  and  he  has  him- 
self described  the  result  in  a  letter  to  his  friends  in 
Pennsylvania. 

"  This  comes  by  the  Pennsylvania  Merchant, — Harrison,  com- 
mander, and  C.  Saunders,  merchant.  By  them  and  this  know,  that 
it  hath  pleased  God  to  work  my  enlargement,  by  three  Lords  repre- 
senting my  case  as  not  only  hard,  but  oppressive ;  that  there  was 
nothing  against  me  but  what  impostors,  or  those  that  are  fled,  or  that 
have,  since  their  pardon  refused  to  verify  (and  asked  me  pardon  for 
saying  what  they  did),  alleged  against  me ;  that  they  had  long  known 
me,  some  of  them  thirty  years,  and  had  never  known  me  to  do  an 
ill  thing,  but  many  good  offices  ;  and  that  for  not  being  thought  to 
go  abroad  in  defiance  of  the  Government,  I  might  and  would  have 
done  it  two  years  ago  ;  and  that  I  was,  therefore,  willing  to  wait  to 
go  about  my  affairs,  as  before,  with  leave;  that  I  might  be  the  better 
respected  in  the  liberty  I  took  to  follow  it. 

*'  King  William  answered,  *  That  I  was  his  old  acquaintance,  as 
well  as  theirs ;  and  that  I  might  follow  my  business  as  freely  as 
ever ;  and  that  he  had  nothing  to  say  to  me,' — upon  which  they 
pressed  him  to  command  one  of  them  to  declare  the  same  to  the 
Secretary  of  State,  Sir  John  Trenchard,  that  if  I  came  to  him,  or 
otherwise,  he  might  signify  the  same  to  me,  which  he  also  did.  The 
Lords  were  Rochester,  Reneleagh,  and  Sydney;  and  the  last  as  my 
greatest  acquaintance,  was  to  tell  the  Secretary ;  accordingly  he 
did ;  and  the  Secretary,  after  speaking  himself,  and  having  it  from 
King  William's  own  mouth,  appointed  me  a  time  to  meet  him  at 
home ;  and  did  with  the  Marquis  of  Winchester,  and  told  me  I  was 
as  free  as  ever ;  and  as  he  doubted  not  my  prudence  about  my  quiet 
living,  for  he  assured  me  I  should  not  be  molested  or  injured  in  any 
of  my  affairs,  at  least  while  he  held  that  post.  The  Secretary  is  my 
old  friend,  and  one  I  served  after  the  D.  of  Monmouth  and  Lord 
Russel's  business ;  I  carried  him  in  my  coach  to  Windsor,  and  pre- 
sented him  to  King  James;  and  when  the  Revolution  came,  he 
bought  ray  four  horses  that  carried  us.  It  was  about  three  or  four 
months  before  the  Revolution.  Tlie  Lords  spoke  the  25th  of  No- 
vember, and  he  discharged  me  on  the  30th. 

"  From  the  Secretary  I  went  to  our  meeting,  at  the  Bull  and 
Mouth ;  thence  to  visit  the  sanctuary  of  my  solitude ;  and  after  that 

329 


J^. 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

to  see  my  poor  wife  and  children ;  the  eldest  being  with  me  all  this 
while.  My  wife  is  yet  weakly ;  but  I  am  not  without  hopes  of  her 
recovery,  who  is  of  the  best  of  wives  and  women." 

From  this  passage  we  learn  that,  when  he  was  a 
courtier  in  King  James's  time,  Penn  lived  in  a  style 
rather  more  magnificent  than  we  now  usually  asso- 
ciate with  Quakers,  for  he  speaks  of  riding  in  his 
coach  and  four  to  visit  the  king.  There  were,  how- 
ever, other  instances  of  this  luxury  among  Quakers, 
especially  in  Pennsylvania,  where  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  of  1776  John  Dickinson  is  described  as 
riding  in  a  coach  and  four. 

Narcissus  Luttrell,  in  his  diary  for  December  5, 
1693,  speaks  of  Penn's  acquittal  by  King  William 
rather  more  bluntly  than  Penn  himself  describes  it 

"  Wm.  Penn,  the  Quaker,  having  for  some  time  absconded,  and 
having  compromised  the  matters  against  him,  appears  now  in  public, 
and  on  Friday  last  held  forth  at  the  Bull  and  Mouth  in  St.  Martin's." 
(Vol.  iii.  p.  237.) 

After  having  assailed  Penn  through  two  volumes  of 
his  history,  Macaulay  at  this  point  fires  his  last  shot 

"  The  return  which  he  made  for  the  lenity  with  which  he  had  been 
treated  does  not  much  raise  his  character.  Scarcely  had  he  again 
begun  to  harrangue  in  public  about  the  unlawfulness  of  war,  when  he 
sent  a  message  earnestly  exhorting  James  to  make  an  immediate 
descent  on  England  with  thirty  thousand  men." 

The  message  here  referred  to  was  contained  in 
a  document  sent  to  James  and  professing  to  inform 
him  what  some  of  his  prominent  adherents  in  Eng- 
land thought  of  his  chances  of  getting  back  his 
crown. 

330 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 


l^ 


"  Mr.  Penn  says  that  your  Majesty  has  had  several  occasions,  but  \si< 

esty  will  be  earnest  with  the  most  Christian  king  not  to  neglect  it :  that 
a  descent  with  thirty  thousand  men  will  not  only  re-establish  your 
Majesty,  but  according  to  all  appearance  break  the  league."  (Mac- 
pherson's  "  Original  Papers,"  vol.  i.  p.  468.) 

This  is  the  language  of  a  Roman  Catholic,  not  of 
a  Quaker ;  for  Penn  is  represented  as  calling  Louis 
XIV.  the  most  Christian  king,  and  he  urges  James  to 
join  with  that  king  in  a  descent  on  England  which 
will  not  only  restore  him  to  the  throne,  but  break  up 
I  the  Protestant  league  which  William  was  maintaining 
by  arms  against  France.  If  Penn  really  used  such 
language  as  this,  it  is  not  surprising  that  they  sus- 
pected him  of  being  a  Jesuit.  '' 

But  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  he  said  anything 
so  inconsistent  with  the  other  expressions  of  his 
opinion  which  we  have.  He  has  told  us,  in  passages 
which  we  have  already  quoted,  that  he  had  more 
hope  for  religious  liberty  under  James  than  under 
j  William.  He  unquestionably  would  have  liked  to 
see  James  again  on  the  throne.  But  I  must  confess 
I  am  not  prepared  to  hear  him  urge  a  French  inva- 
sion of  England  to  accomplish  this  purpose. 

It  is  still  more  difficult  to  believe  that   he    ex- 
pressed it  in  the  language  reported.     The  report, 
it  should   be  remembered,    is   made  by  a  Roman 
Catholic,  who  does  not  apparently  pretend  to  give 
Penn's  words,   but  only  the  substance  of  what  he 
said.     The    man    who    made    this    report   was    onej 
Williamson,  who  was  regularly  employed  to  bring   / 
information  from  England.     In  the  letter  in  which  / 
he  gives  Penn's  opinion  will  be  found  his  reports  of  / 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

what  about  a  dozen  other  friends  of  James  thought 
on  the  subject  of  his  return,  and  all  these  reports 
are  expressed  in  the  same  conventional  form,  and 
they  all  speak  of  the  thirty  thousand  men  tliat  are 
to  descend  on  England. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  Williamson  spoke  di- 
rectly with  Penn  in  order  to  obtain  his  opinion.  He 
may  have  heard  in  a  roundabout  way  something 
which  he  chose  to  consider  as  Penn's  opinion.  Peo- 
ple may  have  told  him  what  they  understood  Penn's 
opinion  to  be,  and  Williamson  may  have  entered  it 
as  a  make-weight  in  his  reports.  As  evidence,  his 
report  seems  to  me  very  weak.  It  seems  all  the 
weaker  when  we  find  that  twenty  years  later,  in  De- 
cember, 1 71 3,  another  information  collector  named 
Plunket  reports  Penn  as  one  of  those  who  could  be 
relied  on  by  the  pretender  to  the  English  throne. 
Plunket  could  not  possibly  have  communicated  with 
Penn ;  for  in  December,  1 7 1 3,  he  had  been  out  of 
his  mind  for  a  year  and  a  half* 

But  we  need  concern  ourselves  no  further  with 
these  reports,  for  the  English  government  never 
again  interfered  with  Penn,  and  we  shall  hear  no 
more  of  his  relations  with  William  III.  During  those 
three  years  of  hiding,  he  had  employed  his  leisure  in 
writing  several  pamphlets,  most  of  them  defences  of 
Quaker  doctrine,  such  as  **  The  New  Athenians  no 
Noble  Bereans"  and  "A  Key  to  the  Quaker  Re- 
ligion." During  that  time,  also,  he  wrote  his  collec- 
tion of  maxims  called  "  Fruits  of  Solitude."     But 


♦  Clarkson's  Penn,  vol.  ii.  p.  290. 
332 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

the  most  interesting  pamphlet  he  wrote  during  his 
concealment  was  "An  Essay  towards  the  Present 
Peace  of  Europe."  In  this  he  advocated  what  has 
ever  since  been  agitating  the  minds  of  philanthropists 
and  public  men, — a  system  of  arbitration  or  general 
government  to  settle  all  the  disputes  of  the  European 
nations  and  prevent  war.  He  proposed  to  have  a 
United  States  of  Europe,  with  a  diet  or  general 
council,  to  which  each  state  should  send  its  repre- 
sentatives ;  and  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  suggest 
the  number  each  nation  should  send. 

Here  we  have  Penn  at  his  best  in  the  midst  of  his 
worst.  While  in  punishment  and  hiding  for  uphold- 
ing a  narrow-minded  and  stupid  despot,  he  advocates 
a  broad  and  generous  principle  which  that  despot 
could  never  have  comprehended.  The  remarkable 
part  of  Penn's  mind  was  the  ready  and  courageous 
way  in  which  he  conceived  and  advocated  liberal 
ideas  far  in  advance  of  his  time  ;  and  yet  this  faculty 
could  not  save  him  from  the  delusion  of  following 
James  II.  and  wasting  the  best  years  of  his  life  in 
attempting  to  introduce  liberty  into  England  by  the 
assistance  of  a  man  who  hated  liberty  with  all  his 
heart 

Penn's  wife  Guli,  who,  as  a  pretty  young  girT,  j 
appeared  in  this  narrative  when  she  married,  twenty 
odd  years  ago,  was  now  a  woman  of  middle  age.  It  j 
is  said  that  she  had  gone  every  year  to  France  since  I 
James  was  dethroned,  carrying  to  him  and  his  queen  \ 
the  little  presents  and  tokens  of  devotion  which  his  ? 
adherents  in  England  were  fond  of  sending.  It  is  | 
said,  also,  that  she  was  always  affectionately  received,   \ 

333 


I 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

although  she  declared  that  the  revolution  was  indis- 
pensable, and  that  she  came  only  for  the  sake  of 
friendship  and  gratitude.* 
"^  At  the  time  Penn  obtained  his  freedom  from  Wil- 
liam she  had  been  for  some  time  in  very  ill  health, 
and  about  three  months  afterwards,  F*ebruary  23, 
— — ^69f,  she  died.  He  has  left  a  touching  description 
of  her  death,  too  long  to  quote  in  full. 

"  She  would  not  suffer  me  to  neglect  any  public  meeting  after  I 
had  my  liberty,  upon  her  account, saying  often,  '  Oh,  go,  my  dearest; 
do  not  hinder  any  good  for  me,  I  desire  thee  go ;  I  have  cast  my 
care  upon  the  Lord :  I  shall  see  thee  again." 

^^x^The  man  who  was  now  known  in  the  world  as  the 

/    Great  Quaker,  Proprietor  and  Governor  of  his  Maj- 

j    esty's  Colony  of  Pennsylvania,   was  in  a  very  sad 

\    plight, — his  wife  dead,   his  influence  as  a  courtier 

I  worse  than  lost,  his  property  wasted,  and  his  high- 

I  sounding  province  a  source  of  cruel  expense  to  him. 

I  He  wanted  to  go  at  once  to  that  province,  but  was 

I   faced  by  the  humiliating  condition  that  he  could  not 

\scrape  together  enough  money  to  take  him  there.   He 

fwrote  a  pathetic  letter  to  his  friends  in  the  province, 

,'describing  his  losses,  and  asked  that  a  hundred  of 

Ithe  colonists  should  each  lend  him  a  hundred  pounds 

jfor  four  years  free  of  interest,  and  after  four  years 

J  with  interest ;  his  own  bond  to  be  given  as  security. 

1 1  am  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  relate  that  there  was  not 

Ithe  slightest  notice  taken  in  Pennsylvania  of  this 

f  very  reasonable  request.     Penn  had  said  that  if  they 

[would  not  lend  him  the  whole  ;ti 0,000  which  he 

*  Strickland's  Queens  of  England,  Mary  Beatrice. 
334 


SUSPICIONS,  CONSPIRACIES,  AND   HIDING 

1 1  asked  for,  he  would  be  satisfied  if  they  would  lend 
\  him  as  much  as  they  could.     But  they  never  lent 
I  him  a  penny. 

It  may  be  said  here,  in  partial  explanation  of  this  ^v^ 
conduct,  that  Penn  was  not  then  popular  in  Penn-  / 
sylvania.     His  attempt  to  govern  the  colony  at  a  "j 
distance  of  three  thousand  miles  through  the  dis-   \ 
turbed   reign  of  James  11.   and  the  years  that  fol-    ) 
lowed  the  revolution  had  been  a  failure.     He  had    ', 
also  lost  caste  among  the  Quakers.     Many  of  them    ( 
were  in  favor  of  King  William  rather  than  James,    ; 
and  Penn  had  now  for  many  years  been  deep  in    ! 
politics  and  a  courtier's  occupations,  which  was  all    \ 
inconsistent  with  the  practice  and  principles  of  his     | 
people.     They  could   excuse  a  great  deal   for  the\ 
sake  of  his  distinguished  position  and  the  good  he  \ 
had  been  able  to  do  them,  but  he  had  gone  entirely^J 
too  far.     There  is  no  doubt  that  at  this  time  they 
regarded  him  with  coldness. 

This  I  know  has  been  vehemently  denied  by  some 
who  deny  everything  that  does  not  tend  to  manufac- 
ture Penn  into  a  saint.  Clarkson,  however,  admits 
in  the  fullest  manner  that  Penn  had  been  deserted 
by  a  large  number  of  his  people,  which,  added  to 
the  detestation  in  which  he  was  held  by  the  fol- 
lowers of  William,  made  him  almost  an  outcast  of 
society.  Clarkson  implies  that  the  Quaker  disap- 
proval of  him  was  only  because  "  he  had  meddled 
more  with  politics  or  with  the  concerns  of  govern- 
ment than  became  a  member  of  their  Christian 
body."  But  the  disapproval  was  for  more  than  this. 
It  was  for  the  part  he  had  taken  in  the  revolution. 

335 


7 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

Thomas  Lower,  a  prominent  Quaker,  prepared  a 
paper  for  Penn  to  sign,  in  the  hope  of  bringing 
about  a  reconciliation.  In  this  he  was  to  be  made 
to  say, — 

«*  And  if  in  any  things  during  these  late  revolutions  I  have  con- 
cerned myself  either  by  words  or  writings  (in  love  pity  or  good  will 
to  any  in  distress)  further  than  consisted  with  Truth's  honor  or  the 
Church's  peace,  I  am  sorry  for  it ;  and  the  government  having  passed 
it  by  I  desire  it  may  be  by  you  also,  that  so  we  may  be  all  kept  and 
preserved  in  the  holy  tie."  (Qarkson,  vol.  ii.  p.  75;  Stoughton, 
p.  270.) 

In  other  words.  Lower,  as  representing  the  Qua- 
kers, believed  that  Penn  had  gone  wrong  in  the  rev- 
olution ;  that  the  government  had  pardoned  him  for 
it,  and  that  he  ought  to  ask  pardon  from  the  Qua- 
kers. He  must  apologize  for  having  assisted  "in 
love  pity  or  good  will"  King  James  "in  distress." 
He  would  never  have  been  asked  to  sign  such  a 
strong  statement  as  that  unless  the  Quakers  thought 
that  there  was   a  great  deal  to  be  forgiven.      He, 

riiowever,  had  always  insisted  that  he  was  right,  and_ 

I  of  course  refused  to  sign  it 

L —  A  year  or  two  afterwards,  in  the  summer  of  1694, 

there  was,  according  to  Clarkson,  a  complete  recon- 

*    ciliation.     He  is    obliged,  however,  to   admit  that 

"how  this  was  effected  is  not  known  ;"  ^  and  from 

I  subsequent  events  it  seems  likely  that  the  recon- 

*^  ciliation  was  not  entirely  completeTr 

♦  Vol.  ii.  p.  105. 


336 


XX 

RETURNS   TO    HIS    OLD    WAY   OF    LIFE 

Though  apparently  anxious  to  return  to  Penn?^  i-  n 
vania,  Penn  was  unable  to  set  out  for  six  years,  aad     \ 
I  suppose  for  the  reason  that  he  had  no  money,  and      \ 
must  stay  in  England  to  restore  as  far  as  possible      | 
his  estates.     In  August,  1694,  King  William  returned^   j 
to  him  the  goverment  of  his  province.     It  had  been  [    | 
taken  from  him,  it  seems,  principally  as  a  war  meas-  \   \ 
ure  ;  for  a  colony  in  the  hands  of  a  Quaker  Jacobite  J    \ 
might,  too,  easily  become  a  prey  to  France.  --^^^^^ 

During  those  six  years  that  he  remained  in  En^^ 
land,  having  ceased  to  be  a  courtier,  he  returned  to 
his  old  life  of  preaching,  and  travelled  for  this  pur>.r 
pose  over  England  and  Ireland.  The  meetings  of 
his  people  and  his  own  preaching  were  conducted 
under  the  Toleration  Act  of  his  enemy  William  III. 
By  that  act  the  Quakers  obtained  for  their  meetings 
a  formal  license,  which  was  always  granted,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  and  that  license  once  obtained,  no 
magistrates,  constables,  or  soldiers  could  interfere 
with  them.  Persecution  was  ended  forever,  and 
Penn  never  again  wrote  on  his  old  topic  of  religious 
liberty.  But  it  would  probably  have  been  impossi- 
ble to  get  him  to  admit  that  he  owed  this  happy  con- 
dition to  William  III.  So  far  as  we  know,  he  never 
«a  337 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

announced  any  alteration  of  his  old  opinion  that  he 
had  faith  in  King  James's  word  for  liberty. 
•  His  preaching  journeys  seem  to  have  been  emi- 
nently successful.  Enormous  numbers  attended  the 
t^neetings.  He  was  now  fifty  years  old,  of  mature 
powers,  with  considerable  experience  of  the  world 
and  of  all  phases  of  society.  The  vicissitudes  and 
troubles  through  which  he  had  passed  rendered  him 
an  object  of  interest  to  thousands  who  may  not 
have  approved  of  his  course  in  the  revolution,  and 
may  not  have  been  Quakers. 

The  great  numbers  attending  the  meetings — some- 
times several  thousand — would  lead  us  at  first  to 
suppose  that  the  Quakers  were  very  numerous. 
But  from  the  descriptions  of  these  meetings  it  is 
evident  that  many  attended  out  of  mere  curiosity  to 
see  a  remarkable  man  and  learn  something  of  this 
curious  religion  which  had  fought  its  way  to  respect- 
ability through  such  terrible  martyrdom.  All  ranks 
and  conditions,  and  even  the  clergy  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church,  came  to  listen.  At  one  meeting  in 
Ireland  the  bishop  sent  the  mayor  to  disperse  the 
people.  Penn  treated  the  mayor  with  great  respect, 
and  persuaded  him  to  retire  until  the  meeting  was 
over,  when  he  promised  to  call  on  the  bishop. 
Upon  Penn's  remonstrating  with  the  bishop,  he  said, 
"  that  he  went  that  morning  to  church  to  perform  1 
his  office  as  usual,  and  when  there  he  had  nobody 
to  preach  to  but  the  mayor,  church  wardens,  some 
of  the  constables,  and  the  walls."  He  had,  there- 
fore, decided  to  disperse  the  great  Quaker  meeting 
in  the  hope  of  obtaining  an  auditory  for  himself 

338 


HANNAH    CALLOWHILL,    J'KNN'S    SECOND    WIFK 


RETURNS  TO   HIS   OLD  WAY  OF  LIFE 

In  the  spring  of  1696,  three  years  after  the  death  1 
of  his  first  wife,  Penn  married  Hannah  Callowhill,  \ 
of  Bristol,  and  to  her  and  to  her  children  Pennsyl- 1 

vania  descended,  and  not  to  Guli's  offspring.  Guli 
had  had  seven  children,  three  of  whom  survived 
her, — Springett,  William,  and  Letitia.  But  about 
five  weeks  after  this  second  marriage  Springett 
died. 

He  was  a  very  religious  young  man,  and  his  father 
wrote  a  long  account  of  his  death.  It  is  very  touch- 
ing and  tender,  and  an  interesting  revelation  of  the 
workings  of  the  Quaker  mind  falling  back  upon 
itself  and  communing  by  the  inward  way  with  God. 
But  there  are  some  who  will  always  resent  a  father's 
making  in  this  way  an  exhibition  of  his  son's  death, 
even  though  it  be  for  edification.  His  description 
of  the  last  days  of  Guli  also  went  rather  far  in  this 
direction. 

Of  the  two  remaining  children,  William  became 
a  rake  and  Letitia  married  William  Aubrey,  who 
became  a  very  disagreeable  son-in-law  to  Penn.  So 
Guli,  who  as  a  girl  was  so  charming  and  married 
Penn  with  such  romantic  affection,  passes  out  of  his 
life  leaving  sad  mementoes.  "^ 

The  next  year,   1697,   Penn  left  Worminghurst,\ 
which  had  been  Guli's  inheritance  from  her  family,  \ 
and  took  up  his  residence  in  Bristol,  where  his  newj 
wife  belonged.     Thus  he  started  a  fresh  page  in  his 
domestic  life,  but  continued  his  old  habit  of  preach- 
ing and  writing.     By  his  second  wife  he  had  six  ) 
children, — ^John,  Thomas,  Hannah,  Margaret,  Rich- 
ard, and   Dennis.     Four  of  them — ^John,  Thomas, 

339 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 


/    Margaret,  and  Richard — survived  her  and  became 
the  proprietors  of  Pennsylvania. 

Peter  the  Great  of  Russia  was  then  a  youth  living 
incognito  in  England  and  working  in  the  ship-yards 
to  inform  his  barbaric  mind  about  that  curious  thing 
civilization,  which  he  had  heard  would  make  a  nation 
powerful.  He  thought  it  might  accomplish  some- 
thing in  his  own  frozen  deserts.  The  Quakers, 
especially  Penn,  sought  him  out.  He  was  rather 
unpromising  material  for  a  proselyte,  and  asked  of 
what  earthly  use  to  a  nation  a  people  could  be  who 
would  not  fight  But  Penn  talked  to  him  in  Ger- 
man and  gave  him  German  Quaker  books,  with  the 
result,  it  is  said,  that  he  always  retained  a  great 
respect  for  the  Quakers,  and  once  in  Denmark 
attended  one  of  their  meetings. 

We  also  find  Penn  back  at  his  old  work  of  writing 
pamphlets  on  Quaker  doctrine,  and  indulging  oc- 
casionally in  controversy  with  opponents  of  his  faith. 
He  disapproved  of  controversy  as  too  disturbing  to 
the  peace  of  the  church  ;  but  in  practice  he  could 
seldom  resist  the  temptation  to  fight  a  round  or  two 
in  the  ecclesiastical  prize-ring.  He  loved  it  just  as 
he  loved  politics  ;  but  I  suppose  wild  horses  could 

.  not  have  dragged  from  him  an  admission  of  such  a 

\worldly  passion. 
-^At  this  time  we  find  him  proposing  to  the  Lords 

fof  Trade  a  plan  of  union  or  general  government  for 

"-^^jthe  colonies  in  America, I  which  is  quite  remarkable 

/    Decause  it  foreshadows  some  of  the  provisions  of 

our   national    constitution.     It  is  pleasant  to    find 

Penn  once  more  himself  after  having  been  so  long 

340 


*  •    «         ,•.  >. 


"  '»  >•-    »o. 


PENN'S  SON    THOMAS 


RETURNS  TO   HIS   OLD   WAY  OF  LIFE 

obscured  in  Jacobitism ;  and  his  mind  was  always  at 
its  best  in  proposing  improvements  far  in  advance 
of  his  time.  He  wanted  a  general  government  for 
the  colonies,  so  as  to  make  customs  duties  the  same 
in  all,  regulate  commerce  and  military  quotas,  and 
return  absconding  debtors.  In  other  words,  he  was 
the  first  to  call  public  attention  to  these  difficulties, 
and  he  suggested  the  remedy  which  within  a  hun- 
dred years  was  carried  into  effect  by  the  American 
people.* 

At  the  Yearly  Meeting  of  Quakers  in  London  in 
1697  there  was  a  violent  attack  on  his  character, 
which  shows  that  the  reconciliation Iwhich  Clarkson 


speaks  of  was  by  no  means  complete.  But  he  could 
easily  afford  to  disregard  such  things,  for  his  hold 
on  the  people  and  his  power  as  a  preacher  were 
strong,  and  there  had  been  abundant  manifestations 
•of  this  in  his  recent  journeys  through  England  and 
Ireland.  His  words  and  presence  seem  to  have  been 
very  efficacious  in  arousing  in  a  meeting  that  pe- 
culiar state  of  mind,  half  serene,  half  exulting,  which 
was  the  foundation  of  Quaker  feeling. 

He  probably  did  his  best  preaching  at  this  periodA 
and  his  farewell  sermon  before  sailing  to  Pennsylva-  j 
nia  has  been  preserved,  the  only  one  of  his  sermons, 
so  far  as  I  can  discover,  that  was  taken  down  andj 
kept  for  posterity.     Quaker  sermons  are  not  of  a 
sort  to  be  admired    in  other  religious  bodies,   and 
scarcely  any  of  them  are  preserved,  because  their 
preservation  might  encourage  vanity  in  the  preacher. 

*  See  The  Evolution  of  the  Constitution,  p.  223. 
341 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

This  sermon  of  Penn's  reads  like  a  good  but  not  a 
remarkable  one,  and  seems  to  have  a  more  modem 
tone  than  we  should  have  expected. 

We  have  a  slight  glimpse  of  his  life  and  methods 
at  this  time  in  an  account  of  his  going  to  bid  fare- 
well to  Thomas  Story,  who  was  about  to  sail  for 
America.  Penn,  with  other  friends  of  Story,  went  on 
board  the  ship,  and  Penn,  "  after  they  had  sat  to- 
gether in  solemn  silence,  appeared  in  supplication 
for  the  well-being  and  preservation  of  all  present,  in 
reverent  thankfulness  for  all  the  favors  of  God,  and 
especially  for  the  precious  enjoyment  of  his  divine 
presence  which  they  then  experienced."  He  cer- 
tainly was  a  many-sided  man,  this  Quaker  courtier 
and^politician. 
^X^n  such  occupations  the  six  years  passed  away, 

J     I  and  in  September,  1699,  ^^  ^t  last  sailed  for  Penn- 
sylvania.    In  a  farewell  letter  to  the  people  of  his 
faith,  after  describing  his  love  for  them,  which,  he 

'^/^saySf  was  like  David's  and  Jonathan's,  he  refers  to 
their  disapproval  of  his  conduct  in  the  revolution. 

"  And  suffer  me  to  say,  that,  to  my  power,  I  have  from  the  first 
endeavored  to  serve  you  (and  my  poor  country),  and  that  at  my  own 
charges  with  an  upright  mind,  however  misunderstood  and  treated 
by  some  whom  I  heartily  forgive." 


34a 


XXI 

PENNSYLVANIA    AGAIN 

Fifteen  years  had  elapsed  since  Penn's  former 
visit  to  his  province ;  and  in  that  time  how  much 
had  happened  !  In  Great  Britain  a  dynasty  had  been 
overthrown  and  a  new  England  begun  under  im- 
proved ideas  of  liberty.  Political  government  was 
returning  more  and  more  to  the  ancient  Anglo- 
Saxon  freedom,  and  England  was  starting  out  on  an 
enlarged  career  of  commercial  success  just  as  Penn 
had  prophesied  it  would  under  the  beneficent  in- 
fluences of  religious  liberty.  In  Pennsylvania  the 
people  had  grown  more  numerous  ;  they  numbered 
now  well  on  towards  twenty  thousand ;  but  the 
province  had  given  Penn  as  much  trouble  as  old 
England  and  her  revolution. 

That  while  three   thousand   miles  away  and  in-  . 

volved  in  a  courtier's  occupations,  and  after  that  o»a^ 
hunted  up  and  down  as  a  conspirator,  he  should 
govern  Pennsylvania  well  was  not  to  be  expected. 
He  seems  to  have  done  well  enough  when  he  lived 
in  the  province,  and  very  badly  when  away  from  it.^ 
There  must  have  been  something  in  his  manner, 
some  atractiveness  of  personality  which  gave  him 
his  best  success  when  face  to  face  with  people. 
When  he  was  directing  men  and  measures  from 
a   distance   he    appears   unreasonable,   weak,   inju- 

343 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

dicious,  censorious,  and  even  illiberal  But  when 
face  to  face  with  the  same  individuals  he  had  no 
diflficulties.  It  may  have  been  a  knowledge  of  this 
quality  that  when  he  was  suspected  of  plots  and 
conspiracies  led  him  to  insist  so  persistently  on  a 
personal  interview  with  William  III.  He  seems  to 
have  had  perfect  confidence  that  if  he  could  once 
stand  in  sight  of  the  king  he  could  settle  everything 
with  him. 
.  \ ,  When  he  returned  to  England  in  the  summer  of 

*  Jb-'^r  1684  he  had  delegated  his  power  as  governor  of  the 

^vTo^      province  to  the  Provincial  Council,  which  consisted 
aV-  4t>  of  eighteen  members,  so  that  there  were  in  effect 

[  _\  ,  eighteen  governors.     The  Assembly  of  the  people 

were  very  jealous  of  this  Provincial  Council,  and  re- 
sisted them  at  every  opportunity.  As  the  Assembly 
were  not  allowed  to  originate  laws,  they  made  up  for 
their  lack  of  power  by  rejecting,  on  the  slightest 
pretext,  those  originated  by  the  Council.  They 
would  pass  no  laws  at  all  except  on  condition  that 
they  should  be  in  force  only  one  year.  At  the  end 
of  the  year,  unless  the  Council  yielded  to  their 
wishes,  they  would  refuse  to  renew  the  laws,  which 
was,  in  effect,  to  leave  the  colony  without  any  laws 
at  all.  They  produced  a  dead-lock  several  times  in 
this  way,  to  the  great  annoyance  of  Penn.  In  the 
hope  of  checking  their  wrangling,  he  altered  the 
arrangement,  and,  instead  of  having  eighteen  gov- 
ernors, reduced  the  number  to  five,  whom  he  called 
commissioners. 

To  these  commissioners  he  sent  a  letter  of  in- 
structions, telling  them  to   rule  the  colony  with  a 

344 


PENNSYLVANIA  AGAIN 


high  hand.     They  had,  he  said,  the  power  to  enact, 
annul,  or  vary  laws  as  if  he  himself  were  present. 
This  was  an  extraordinary  piece  of  news  ;  for  no- 
body had  supposed  that  Penn  himself  had  any  such 
power.     He  certainly  was  not  entitled  to  it  under 
the  charter  which  gave  him  the  right  to  make  laws      / 
only  with  the  consent  of  the  freemen  or  their  dele-     /■ 
gates.     If  he  could  not  make  laws  without  the  con-    ■ 
sent  of  the  freemen,  it  was  reasonable  to  suppose    ] 
that  he  could  not  annul  them  without  their  consent.     '. 

But  he  went  on  in  his  instructions  like  an  Eastern    / 
despot,  ordering  the  commissioners  to  keep  the  Pro-    ( 
vincial  Council  to  its  duty.     If  that  body,  he  said,    ; 
continued  its  slothful  and  dishonorable  methods,  he    ' 
would  dissolve  the  whole  frame  of  governn>ent ;  and 
the  power  to  dissolve  it  he  appeared  to  think  rested 
entirely  with  himself     As  a  foretaste  of  what  he 
could  do,  he  told  the  commissioners  that  at  the  next 
meeting  of  the  Assembly  they  were  to  announce  that 
all  the  laws  except  the  constitution  itself  were  abro- 
gated.    They  were  then  to  dismiss  the  Assembly, 
and,  having  called  it  again,  pass  such  of  the  laws 
afresh  as  seemed  proper.  — . 

This  strange  outbreak  is  explained  when  we  look  j 
at  its  date  and  find  that  it  was  in  the  year  1686,   1 
soon  after  James  II.  had  ascended  the  throne  and    \ 
Penn  had  become  one  of  his  courtiers  and  a  sup-    \ 
porter  of  his  policy.     Penn   must  needs  assert  the     \ 
same  power  that  his  royal  master  professed  to  have,     J 
— the  right  to  suspend  laws  at  his  pleasure. 

Such   an  assumption   of  power  over   his  colony 
would  have  created  a  great  commotion  among  the 

345 


n 


p; 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

people,  if  it  had  become  known.  But  fortunately 
for  him  the  commissioners  kept  his  instructions 
secret,  wisely  forebore  to  act  upon  them,  and  went 
on  governing  in  the  usual  way. 

The  province  was  giving  him  trouble  enough 
without  the  outbreak  and  rebellion  which  his  in- 
structions might  have  caused.  The  commissioners 
had  hardly  been  in  office  a  year  before  he  again 
changed  the  form  of  government,  and  in  place  of 
the  commissioners  appointed  a  single  deputy  gov- 
ernor. Captain  John  Blackwell,  an  old  Cromwellian 
soldier.  But  the  Quakers  resented  the  appointment 
of  a  professional  soldier,  a  soldier,  too,  who  was  all 
the  more  disliked  for  being  a  Puritan  from  New 
England.  They  made  it  so  hot  for  him  that  he 
I  asked  to  be  relieved  from  his  ludicrous  position.  So 
\  this  experiment  also  failed  after  being  tried  only  a 
year. 

Then  he  went  back  again  to  the  plan  of  having 
the  whole  Provincial  Council  act  as  governor.  But 
in  1692  this  was  changed,  and  he  tried  a  single 
deputy  governor  again.  In  the  ten  years  since  the 
foundation  of  the  colony  the  government  had  been 
changed  six  times ;  and  in  a  few  months  there  was 
another  change,  when  William  III.  took  possession 
of  Pennsylvania  and  appointed  over  it  a  military 
governor,  or  captain-general,  as  he  was  called, — 
Colonel  Benjamin  Fletcher. 

This  Fletcher  had  also  a  stormy  time  in  ruling  the 
province.  But  Penn  was  deprived  of  Pennsylvania 
only  a  year  and  ten  months  from  October  20,  1692, 
to  August   20,    1694.     When  he  received  it  back 

346 


„./ 


PENNSYLVANIA   AGAIN 

again,  he  appointed  his  cousin,  Markham,  to  be 
deputy  governor,  but  gave  him  two  assistants  whose 
advice  he  was  compelled  to  accept,  so  that  in  effect 
there  were  three  deputy  governors.  Markham,  how- 
ever, managed  to  get  on  after  a  fashion,  and  held  his 
post  for  five  years,  rather  longer  than  any  of  the 
other  experiments.  He  remained,  in  fact,  until  Penn 
arrived  in  1699.  The  people  secured  from  Mark- 
ham many  liberties,  and  the  Assembly  secured  for 
itself  the  privilege  of  originating  legislation  which 
Penn  had  confined  to  the  Council.  

These  difficulties  and  constant  changes  in  the  gov^ 
ernment  seem  to  show  very  injudicious  managemenj^ 
But  the  worst  part  of  the  business  was  that  instead 
of  bringing  him  in  large  returns  from  quit-rents,  the    ; 
province  was  involving  him  deeper  and  deeper  in   \ 
debt      He  had  been  bearing  the  expense  of  the  . 
government,  paying  salaries,  and  spending  money  on  ^ 
his  country  place  at  Pennsbury,  all  in  a  generous 
spirit  to  push  on  the  fortunes  of  the  colony  and  give 
it  prosperity  and  success.      His  bungling  arrange- 
ments with  the  government  were  also  well  meant. 
But  in  all  there  is  a  total  lack  of  skilful  and  busi- 
ness-like method. 

However,  he  was  now  on  the  sea  bound  for  his 
colony  to  govern  it  in  person.  He  had  his  family 
with  him,  and  there  is  every  indication  that  he  in- 
tended to  spend  a  long  time  in  Pennsylvania  if  not 
end  his  days  there.  The  voyage  was  a  very  long  one 
of  over  three  months.  But  at  last  the  ship  entered 
the  Delaware  towards  the  end  of  November,  about  a  !^^^ 
month   later  than  he  had  arrived  on  his  previous 

347 


^ 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

visit     She  was  evidently  veiy  slow  in  working  her 
way  up  the  river ;  for  on  the  30th,  at  New  Castlei 
Penn  took  to  a  small  boat  and  was  rowed  to  Chester,] 
the  same  place  where  he  had  landed  when  he  first 
came  out  to  the  colony. 
r"    It  had  become  known  along  the  river  that  the 
\   great    proprietor   and    governor   had    arrived,    and 
\  Thomas  Story  hastened  from  New  Castle  to  meet 
Vhim  at  Chester.    This  was  the  distinguished  Quaker, 
to  whom,  when  setting  out  some  time  before  on  his 
travels  in  America,  Penn  had  bidden  farewell.     It 
must  have  been  interesting  for  these  two  men,  who 
had  seen  and  known  so  much  in  England,  to  meet 
suddenly  in  this  little  village  in  the  American  wil- 
derness.    They  lodged  together  at  the  house  of  a 
r^uaker,  Lydia  Wade,  who  lived  close  to  Chester ; 
and  Story,  no  doubt,  described  to  Penn  the  frightful 
scenes  some  months  before  when  the  yellow  fever, 
or  Barbadoes  distemper,  as  some  called  it,  had  visited 
Philadelphia,  killing  two  hundred  and  fifteen  people 
and  frightening  the  most  careless  into  seriousness. 
■  iBut  for  the  most  part  that  evening,  as  Story  tells  us 
fin  his  diary,  they  talked  about  "  matters  of  govern- 
/ment,"  possibly  English  affairs,  but  more  likely  the 
[troublesome  government  of  Pennsylvania. 

The  next  day,  the  ship  having  caught  up  to  Penn, 
he  went  with  her  to  Philadelphia.  He  arrived  bnj 
Sunday,  and  after  distributing  six  pounds,  a  large/ 
sum  in  those  days,  as  a  largess  to  the  crew,  he  went 
on  shore,  paid  a  short  visit  to  his  deputy  governor, 
Markham,  and  then  attended  the  Quaker  meeting; 
where  he  preached,  no  doubt,  with  much  effect ;  for 

348 


f 


JAMKS    I.OCiAN 


PENNSYLVANIA  AGAIN 

the  occasion  must  have  been  to  him  a  very  interest- 
ing one. 

He  had  brought  out  with  him,  as  his  secretary^"! 
James  Logan,  who  settled  in  the  colony  and  became  / 
one  of  its  most  prominent  and  distinguished  menj 
He  took  charge  of  all  Penn's  affairs,  and  on  Penn's 
death  represented  the  family  in  the  province  for  the 
rest  of  his  life. 

On  their  arrival  at  Philadelphia,  he  and  Penn,  with 
Mrs.  Penn  and  Penn's  daughter,  Letitia,  lived  for  a 
month  at  the  house  of  Edward  Shippen.     After  that         j 
they  moved  to  the  slate-roof  house,  as  it  was  called,        i 
on  the  east  side  of  Second  street,  north  of  Walnut.        / 
Penn  rented  it  for  two  years,  and  used  it  for  his  town       / 
residence.      His  son  John   was  born  there,  always       "^ 
known  as  John  the  American,   and    it   was   after- 
wards used  by  Logan  as  an  office  for  the  proprie- 
tary business.      It  should  have  been  preserved  as 
a  relic,  for  in   later  years   it  had  many  interesting 
associations. 

A  large   part  of  the   inhabitants,   especially  the  | 
Quakers,  seem  to  have  been  heartily  glad  to  have  1 
Penn  with  them  again.      The  party  opposed  to  hihi 
was  small,  and  was  led  by  a  certain  Colonel  Quarry, 
who  represented  the  British  government  in  the  colony 
as  judge  of  the  admiralty,,  to  see  that  the  revenue       V 
laws  were  enforced ;  and  he  was  also  the  leader  of         v, 
the  Church  of  England  people.    He  had  bitterly  op-  ( 

posed   Penn   before  his  arrival,  and  after  Penn  re-  ' 

turned  to  England  he  opposed^  him  again.  But 
while  Penn  was  in  the  province  that  faculty  he  had 
for  dealing  with  people  face  to  face  seems  to  have 

349 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 


( 


\ 


quieted  all  animosities.  Almost  as  soon  as  he  ar-  j 
rived  he  sent  for  Quarry,  and  they  talked  over  theitJ 
differences  frankly  and  with  good  results. 

In  truth,  Penn,  being  now  on  the  ground,  could 
remedy  the  matters  of  which  Quarry  had  been  com- 
plaining to  the  British  government  One  of  these 
•was  piracy  ;  and  the  home  government  had  inti- 
mated rather  strongly  to  Penn  that  unless  he  sup- 
pressed piracy  in  the  neighborhood  of  his  province 
he  might  forfeit  his  charter.  I  have  elsewhere  de- 
scribed the  extraordinary  prevalence  of  piracy  in 
those  times,  and  how  prominent  people  and  even 
colonial  governors  were  interested  in  its  profits.* 
Without  going  further  into  details,  I  may  say  here 
that  some  of  the  pirates  were  living  comfortably  in 
Philadelphia,  and  one  of  them,  James  Brown,  had 
married  Governor  Markham's  daughter. 

r'^enn  went  to  work  on  them  with  a  strong  hand, 
(pursuing  and  arresting  in  a  way  which  they  probably 

(did  not  expect  from  a  Quaker  preacher.  But  the 
Quakers  were  very  active,  energetic  people  in  those 
days ;  and  the  best  governor  they  ever  had  in  the 
Carolinas  in  colonial  times  was  a  Quaker.  In  deal- 
ing with  the  son-in-law  of  his  deputy  governor  Penn 
had  a  delicate  matter  on  his  hands,  and  the  letter  is 
still  extant  in  which,  in  his  very  kindly  way,  he  re- 
quires the  deputy  to  be  security  for  his  precious  son- 

Jn-law*s  appearance.f 

He  was  busy  enough  with  this  and  other  matters, 

*  Men,  Women,  and  Manners  in  G)Ionial  Times,  vol.  ii.  pp.  274- 
286. 

f  Buck's  Penn  in  America,  p.  238. 
350 


PENNSYLVANIA  AGAIN 

surveying  a  manor  of  ten  thousand  acres  at  Rock-    / 
hill,  in  Bucks  County,  for  his  new-born  son,  John   / 
the  American  ;  preaching  at  Quaker  meetings  in    ) 
Pennsylvania   and   New  Jersey ;    holding   meetings    j 
of  the  Council  and  Assembly ;  attempting  to  have    ^ 
laws  passed  to  regulate  marriages  among  the  negro 
slaves,  and  to  break  up  the  promiscuous  concubinage 
among  them,  and  also  arranging  for  religious  meet- 
ings among  them  and  the  Indians.     Although  veiy^ 
advanced  in  his  ideas,  he  had  not  reached  the  point  I  (-/ 
of  opposing   negro   slavery,  and  he  was  himself  a  V 
slaveholder. 

He  established  the  plan  of  having  a  night-watch- 
man in  Philadelphia,  who  should  traverse  the  town  at  ^ 
regular  hours,  announcing  the  time,  describing  the 
weather,  and  anything  remarkable  that  had  hap- 
pened. This  custom  continued  until  long  after  the 
Revolution.  Penn  also  urged  upon  the  people  the 
importance  of  carrying  more  effectually  into  prac 
tice  the  Quaker  reform  of  making  prisons  work- 
houses and  reformatories ;  and  in  after  years  the 
Pennsylvania  system  of  prison  discipline  became  the 
model  for  the  rest  of  the  country. 

During  his  absence  in  England  there  had  been  so 
many  changes  in  the  constitution  that  its  validity 
was  in  question.  Markham  had,  without  the  ap- 
proval of  Penn,  allowed  the  Assembly  the  right  to 
originate  laws  and  adjourn  as  they  pleased.  By 
these  changes,  made  without  his  consent,  Penn 
thought  that  the  whole  constitution  had  gone  into  \ 
abeyance,  and  could  be  revived  only  by  writ     He  \ 

had  already  acted  on  this  idea,  and  had  summoned 

351 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

the  Assembly  by  his  own  writ,  as  if  it  had  not  power 
to  meet  of  itself  This  was  somewhat  high-handed, 
but  the  people  acquiesced  in  it,  and  as  Penn,  though 
fond  of  such  assertions  of  power,  never  used  them 
to  oppress  the  colonists,  it  is  difficult  to  find  fault 
with  him.  To  settle  all  doubts,  he  told  them,  in  his 
broad,  liberal  way,  to  prepare  a  new  constitution, 
and  put  in  it  anything  they  wanted.  Meantime, 
they  formally  surrendered  to  him  the  old  one,  which 
Cshows  that  their  confidence  in  him  was  by  no  means 
/  slight 

^;irfie   was    enjoying   himself    at   his   country-seat, 
^Pennsbury,  where    he  went  to  live   in  spring.       It 
I  was  twenty  miles  up  the  river,  and  there  his  chief  i 
V  interests  were  centred  during  the  rest  of  his  visit] 
The  upper  river  was  less  interesting  than  the  wide 
reaches  and  vast  overflowed  meadows  below  Phila- 
delphia, with  which  he  had  become  familiar  on  his 
first  visit     But  he  soon  surrounded  himself  with 
amusements  at  Pennsbury.     He  was  fond  of  nature 
and  a  country  life,  and  knew  how  to  create  a  world 
of  his  own  in  the  woods. 

^^'^he   building  of  the   mansion  house  had  been 
[Started  during  his  first  visit,  and  it  is  said  to  have 
/cost  ;f5000,  which  was  certainly  an  extravagant  sum 
Cto  spend  on  a  house  in  the   wilderness.      It   was 
backed  by  vast  forests,  through  which  only  a  few 
roads  and  trails  had  been  cut     We  find  Penn  send- 
ing down  to  Philadelphia  for  a  compass  to  guide 
him  in  his  rides  on  horseback  ;  and  the  large  creeks 
not  having  been  bridged,  he  could  not  drive  in  a 
wagon  to  Philadelphia. 

352 


PENNSYLVANIA  AGAIN 


He  communicated  with  the  town  almost  ex- 
clusively by  boat  He  had  a  fine  barge,  with  six 
oarsmen  ;  and  he  seems  to  have  been  very  fond  of 
these  journeys  by  water.  Of  the  barge  itself  he 
was  particularly  careful.  "But  above  all  dead 
things,"  he  writes  to  his  steward  at  Pennsbury,  "  my 
barge,  I  hope  nobody  uses  it  on  any  account,  and 
that  she  is  kept  in  a  dry-dock,  or  at  least  covered 
from  the  weather."  In  this  barge  he  was  rowed  to] 
Philadelphia  to  attend  the  meetings  of  the  Provin-j 
cial  Council;  and  if  indisposed  he  would  send  the  I 
barge  to  bring  the  members  of  the  Council  to  Penns- 1 
bury.  __,_^ 

The  house  was  built  of  brick,  two  stories  and  a 
half  high  and  sixty  feet  in  front,  facing  the  river. 
There  was  a  very  large  hall  on  the  first  floor,  ex- 
tending, it  is  supposed,  the  whole  length  of  the 
house,  and  this  was  for  meetings  of  the  Council  and 
for  entertainments  of  all  sorts,  especially  for  the 
Indian  chiefs  who  often  came  to  see  him.  A  small 
hall  and  three  parlors  are  said  to  have  communicated 
with  this  large  room.  The  kitchen  was  in  a  separate 
building  at  the  side,  as  was  common  at  many  of  the 
country  houses  built  in  Pennsylvania  in  colonial 
times.  There  was  also  a  brew-house,  a  laundry,  and 
a  stable  for  twelve  horses  ;  and  all  these  out-build- 
ings were  on  a  line  with  the  main  house  facing  the 
river. 

From  the  house  to  the  river  the  ground  was  ter- 
raced, and  an  avenue  of  poplars  shaded  the  path  to 
the  water.     Gardens  and  a  well-laid  lawn  extended 
all  round  the  house,  and  vistas  were  cut  through  the 
»3  353 


■i^ 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

neighboring  forest-trees  to  give  views  up  and  down 
the  river.  Penn  sent  out  from  England  walnut- 
trees,  hawthorns,  hazels,  and  a  great  quantity  of 
fruit-trees,  and  all  sorts  of  seeds  and  roots.  He  had 
trees  and  shrubs  brought  from  Maryland  to  experi- 
ment in  their  culture  ;  and  had  the  native  wild  flow- 
ers transplanted  into  his  gardens. 

The  house  was  well  furnished  with  the  pewter,  sil- 
ver, and  chinaware  used  at  that  time,  handsome  oak 
and  walnut  chairs  and  tables,  satin  curtains,  a  good 
supply  of  sherry,  madeira,  canary,  and  claret  in 
the  cellar,  and  six  large  vessels  called  cisterns  for 
holding  water  or  beer,  which  were  probably  used  in 
entertaining  the  Indians.  He  once,  it  is  said,  gave 
the  chiefs  a  grand  feast  at  a  table  spread  for  them  in 
the  avenue,  and  provided  a  hundred  turkeys,  besides 
venison. 

He  appears  to  have  had  a  coach,  a  calash,  and  a 
sedan  chair.  The  coach  and  calash  may  have  been 
used  at  Pennsbury,  but  the  chair  was  probably  used 
only  in  the  town.  Most  of  his  travelling  was  done 
on  horseback,  and  his  wife  and  daughter  appear  to 
have  amused  themselves  in  this  way,  for  three  side- 
saddles and  two  pillions  are  enumerated  among  the 
articles  at  Pennsbury.  He  was  rather  fond  of  good 
horses,  and  brought  with  him  from  England  on  this 
visit  a  fine  colt  called  Tamerlane,  sired,  it  is  sup- 
posed, by  the  famous  British  stallion  Godolphin.  It 
has  also  been  inferred  that  Penn  used  a  shot-gun  at 
Pennsbury,  for  in  his  cash-book  there  is  an  entry, 
**  repair  of  the  governor's  gun.'* 

He  seems  to  have  wandered  on  horseback  all  over 
354 


PENNSYLVANIA  AGAIN 

the  country  for  a  circuit  of  thirty  or  forty  miles 
round  Philadelphia  ;  and  we  can  be  quite  sure  that 
all  the  prominent  places  we  now  know  so  well  were 
carefully  examined  by  him  when  there  was  nothing 
much  to  be  seen  but  forest-trees  or  an  Indian  clear- 
ing. Many  of  these  excursions  were  taken  for  the 
purpose  of  looking  at  manors  or  tracts  which  his 
surveyors  were  marking  out.  He  also  made  a  longj 
expedition  to  the  Susquehanna,  as  he  had  done  on  1 
his  former  visit. 

It  was  on  his  return  from  this  expedition,  as  is 
supposed,  that  he  was  lost  for  a  time  on  the  hill  near 
Valley  Forge.  He  wandered  aimlessly  until,  cross- 
ing Valley  Creek  and  ascending  the  hill  on  the  south 
of  it,  he  saw  the  Schuylkill,  which  gave  him  his  true 
direction.  He  named  the  hill  which  misled  him. 
Mount  Misery,  and  the  hill  from  which  he  saw  the 
Schuylkill,  Mount  Joy,  and  they  are  still  sometimes 
called  by  those  names. 

A  pretty  story  is  told  of  his  riding  one  day  to  the 
meeting-house  at  Haverford,  west  of  Philadelphia, 
and  overtaking  a  little  barefooted  girl,  Rebecca 
Wood,  who  afterwards  told  the  story,  also  going  to 
the  meeting.  He  took  her  up  behind  him  on  the 
horse,  and  the  two  rode  on,  the  little  girl  with  her 
bare  legs  dangling  against  the  horse's  side,  and  the 
governor  with  his  long  coat  and  knee-breeches. 

Judging  from  the  entries  in  his  cash-book,  he  gave 
away  a  considerable  sum  in  charity  to  all  sorts  of 
poor  people,  and  even  after  he  returned  to  England 
he  instructed  his  secretary  to  continue  these  gifts.- 
He  and  his  family  were  fond  of  attending  fairs  and 
.   355 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

•  the  Indian  dances  called  canticoes.  Numerous 
speeches  of  Penn  to  the  Indians  have  come  down 
to  us,  and,  like  all  such  speeches,  they  seem  very 
plausible  and  unanswerable,  or,  at  least,  the  answers 
of  the  Indians  are  not  usually  reported.  The  Penn- 
sylvania Germans  have,  however,  preserved  an  an- 
swer some  Indians  made  to  Penn,  and  it  does  not 
appear  that  Penn  replied. 

*•  You  ask  us  to  believe  in  the  great  Creator  and  Ruler  of  heaven 

and  earth,  and  yet  you  yourself  do  not  believe  nor  trust  Him,  for 

you  have  taken  the  land  unto  yourself  which  we  and  our  friends 

occupied  in  common.     You  scheme  night  and  day  how  you  may 

preserve  it  so  that  none  can  take  it  from  you.     Yea,  you   even 

scheme  beyond  your  life  and  parcel  it  out  between  your  children, — 

J  this  manor  for  one  child,  that  manor  for  another.     We  believe  in 

|,    ^V-^y  God  the  Creator  and  Ruler  of  heaven  and  earth.     He  maintains 

il  Cr    /  ^c  sun  ;  He  maintained  our  fathers  for  so  many,  many  moons.     He 

'  '  maintains  us,  and  we  believe  and  are  sure  that  He  will  also  protect 

our  children  as  well  as  ourselves.     And  so  long  as  we  have  this  faith 

we  trust  in  Him,  and  never  bequeath  a  foot  of  ground."     (Sachse's 

"  German  Pietists  in  America,'*  p.  150.) 

Besides  his  Pennsylvania  journeys,  Penn  travelled 

to  New  Jersey,  New  York,  and  Maryland.     These 

(  journeys  were  partly  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the 

(         country  and  partly  in  continuance  of  his  old  habit 

'         of  visiting  the  Quakers  and  preaching  at  their  meet- 

/       ings.     A  Quaker  meeting  at  Easton,  Maryland,  has 

preserved  the  record  of  one  of  these  visits  in  the 

year  1700. 

"  We  were  at  a  Yearly  Meeting  at  Tredhaven,  in  Maryland,  upon 
the  Eastern  shore,  to  which  meeting  for  worship  came  Wm.  Penn, 
Lord  and  Lady  Baltimore,  with  their  retinue ;  but  it  was  late  when 
Ihcy  came,  and  the  strength  and  glory  of  the  heavenly  power  of  the 
Lord  was  going  off  from  the  meeting.     The  lady  was  much  disap- 

356 


PENNSYLVANIA  AGAIN 

pointed,  as  I  understand  from  Wm.  Penn,  for  she  told  him  she  did 
not  want  to  hear  him,  and  such  as  he,  for  he  was  a  scholar  and  a  wise 
man,  and  she  did  not  question  but  he  could  preach ;  but  she  wanted 
to  hear  some  of  our  mechanics  preach,  as  husbandmen,  shoemakers, 
and  such  like  rustics,  for  she  thought  they  could  not  preach  to  any 
purpose.  Wm.  Penn  told  her  '  some  of  these  were  rather  the  best 
preachers  we  had  among  us.'  "    (Buck's  "  Penn  in  America,"  p.  320.) 

In  such  employments  and  pleasures  he  passed 
nearly  two  years.  The  full  details  of  his  acts  as  a 
governor,  his  dealings  with  the  Assembly,  and  his 
troubles  with  the  three  lower  counties,  as  Dela- 
ware was  then  called,  are  given  in  full  by  some  of 
his  biographers,  and  best  of  all  by  Janney  and  by 
Buck.  I  can  touch  on  these  subjects  only  lightly 
and  merely  say  that  he  seemed  to  manage  all  these 
affairs  easily  and  without  the  gnawing  care  and  an- 
noyance which  they  gave  him  in  England.  He  was 
still  paying  official  salaries  and  assisting  this  person 
and  that  with  money  ;  and  he  declared  that  Pennsyl- 
vania now  stood  him  a  loss  of  ;£"20,ooo.*  The  As- 
sembly would  do  nothing  to  make  this  up,  and  the 
returns  from  his  quit-rents  and  sales  of  land  were 
very  slow. 

StilJ^he  seems  to  have  intended  to  remain  in  his< — 
province  for  an  indefinite  period.  ■  He  was  enjoying 
to  the  utmost  the  wilderness  andf  what  he  called  "a 
country  and  proprietary  Hfe."  But  in  the  summer 
of  1 70 1  he  heard  that  there  was  a  movement  in 
England  to  turn  all  the  proprietary  governments 
into  royal  colonies  under  the  direct  rule  of  the  crown, 
and  that  a  bill  for  that  purpose  had  been  already 

*  Janney,  p.  438. 
357 


? 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

introduced  in   Parliament     He  felt   that  he   must 
return  to  check  this  measure,  and  he  prepared  for 
)    his  departure  with  the  greatest  regret    [Re  hoped*^ 
to  return  so  soon  that  he  wanted  to  leave  his  wife  i 
and  daughter  in  Pennsylvania ;  but  they  insisted  onj 
returning  with  him. 

In  a  letter  to  Logan  at  this  time,  after  saying  that 
all  he  has  to  dispose  of  in  the  world  is  in  the  prov- 
ince, he  adds,  "having  no  more  gains  by  govem- 
Jl^  ment  to  trust  to  for  bread."  *    This  chance  sentence 

Kry/"  may  possibly  throw  some  light  on  the  vexed  ques- 

tion whether  he  had  any  position  of  profit  under  the 
government  of  James  II. 
•s  At  the  close  of  October  he  was  ready  to  sail ;  but 

\  before  leaving  he  agreed  with  the  Assembly  on  the 
new  constitution  he  had  promised  them.  It  was  a 
more  simple  document  than  those  which  had  pre- 

^^^_^ded  it  There  was  no  provincial  council,  or  double 
house  of  legislature,  but  merely  a  governor  to  be 
appointed  by  him,  and  an  assembly  elected  by  the 
people  ;  and  this  assembly  had  the  right  to  choose 
its  own  speaker  and  other  officers,  originate  laws, 
and  could  adjourn  when  it  pleased.  It  was  a  very 
liberal  government ;  for  in  many  of  the  colonies  the 
adjournment  of  the  assembly  was  in  control  of  the 
governor,  who  by  that  means  could  worry  them  into 
passing  the  laws  he  wanted. 

The  constitution  abolished  the  provincial  council, 
which  had  been  a  legislative  body  elected  by  the 
people  like  the  assembly  ;  and  apparently  there  was 

*  Janney,  p.  43 1 
358 


PENNSYLVANIA  AGAIN 

not  even  to  be  a  governor's  council ;  but  Penn  and 
his  heirs  after  him  always  appointed  a  body  of  this 
sort  to  assist  the  governor  ;  the  people  in  vain  pro- 
testing that  it  was  unconstitutional.  The  constitu- 
tion, as  a  whole,  proved  to  be  an  excellent  one,  and 
the  Pennsylvanians  lived  under  it  for  seventy-five 
years,  down  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  a 
longer  period  than  they  have  lived  under  any  of 
their  subsequent  frames  of  government. 


359 


y 


XXII 

A  COURTIER  AGAIN,  AND   AGAIN   IN    PRISON 


When  Penn  sailed  away  from  his  province,  at  the 
close  of  October,  1 701,  he  thought  he  could  quickly 
dispose  of  the  measure  in  Parliament  against  the 
proprietary  colonies,  and  would  soon  enjoy  Penns- 
bury  again.  But  he  became  absorbed  in  other  things, 
and  he  never  again  returned  to  Pennsylvania. 

He  had  a  quick  voyage  of  only  a  month,  instead 
of  the  three  months  of  his  outward  passage.     But  as 
soon  as  he  arrived  we  find  Pennsylvania  becoming  a 
torment   to  him,  instead  of  the    great   pleasure  it 
always  seems  to  have  been  when  he  lived  in  it    His 
expenses  were  no  doubt  greater  in  England,  which 
made  his  steady  losses  by  the  province  more  appar- 
ent    But  a  greater  loss  was  to  find  that  during  the 
two  years  of  his  absence  his  son  William  had  got 
into  very  evil  ways  of  dissipation.     This  young  man 
was  the  last  of  Guli's  children, — bright  and  accom- 
plished in  a  way,  but  he  had  been  keeping  "top 
company,"  as  his  father  called  it     He  was  married 
and  had  a  family  of  children,  but  that  seems  to  have 
been  no  restraint  upon  him. 
<-*  In   great   bitterness    of    spirit,   Penn    ever   after 
I  blamed  this  loss  on  Pennsylvania :  for  if  he  had  not 
j  been  absent  there  for  two  years,  he  thought  he  could 
i  have  saved  his  son.     As  time  passed  and  the  young 
^  360 


A  COURTIER  AGAIN,  AND  AGAIN  IN  PRISON 

man's  condition  became  more  and  more  irreclaim- 
able, Penn  became  all  the  more  convinced  that  if  it 
had  not  been  for  those  two  years  of  separation  he 
could  have  stopped  the  evil  habits  before  they  be- 
came so  firmly  fixed. 

The  best  thing  to  do,  he  thought,  was  to  send  him 
out  to  the  province,  where  there  was  very  little  "  top 
company,"  where  he  could  live  at  Pennsbury  and 
enjoy  the  simple  pleasures  of  the  woods.  He  had,  it 
seems,  contracted  heavy  debts  in  England,  and  his 
creditors  were  beginning  to  press,  which  in  those 
days  meant  imprisonment.  Penn  evidently  hoped 
to  reclaim  his  son  by  indulging  part  of  his  love  of 
pleasure.  He  was  to  have  hounds  for  hunting  foxes, 
deer,  and  wolves,  to  be  taken  on  fishing  excursions, 
little  journeys  to  see  the  Indians,  and  everything  of 
that  sort  that  was  wholesome  ;  and  the  servants  at 
Pennsbury  were  instructed  to  take  good  care  of  his 
dogs.  The  young  man,  in  short,  was  sent  to  Amer^ 
ica  with  a  very  expensive  outfit,  and,  in  a  letter  ta 
Logan,  Penn  complains  of  this  as  another  heavy 
loss.  Logan  was  instructed  to  look  after  the  way- 
ward youth,  get  him  good  acquaintances,  encourage 
Penn's  old  friends  to  be  kind  and  helpful  to  him, 
and  prevent,  if  possible,  "rambling  to  New  York 
and  mongrel  correspondence." 

In  the  spring  of  1 702,  a  few  months  after  Penn*s 
return,  William  III.  died,  and  I  cannot  find  any  rec- 
ord of  Penn's  sorrow  on  that  occasion.  Queen  Anne 
succeeded  to  the  throne.  She  was  the  daughter  of 
James,  but  a  Protestant,  and  married  to  a  Protestant, 
Prince  George  of  Denmark.     She  continued  the  Tol- 

361 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

eration  Act  and  the  tests,  and  made  no  serious 
changes  in  the  general  policy  established  by  William, 
f^ut  as  the  daughter  of  James  she  seemed  to  have 
/  kindly  feelings  for  Penn,  and  he  again  became  a 
courtier,  living  at  Kensington  in  London,  while  his 
wife,  for  economy's  sake,  went  to  live  for  a  time  with 
her  father. 

In  the  fourteen  years  since  William  III.  came  to 
the  throne  England  had  greatly  changed.  The  most 
striking  change  was  that  violence,  cruelty,  and  brutal 
executions  had  largely  passed  away.  All  things 
were  more  regular  and  orderly.  The  court  had  be- 
come decent,  and  ribald  conversation  and  obscenity 
were  passing  out  of  fashion.  William  and  Mary  were 
virtuous  and  honorable  rulers,  and  set  the  example 
which  is  now  the  modern  requirement  in  kings. 
The  government  was  settled  ;  civil  war  was  not 
threatening  every  month  ;  bright  and  independent 
minds  were  no  longer  living  in  banishment,  or  orna- 
menting the  towns  with  their  bleeding  heads  and 
quarters ;  the  statesman  who  failed  lost  his  office 
and  not  his  head.  In  fact,  under  the  liberty  estab- 
lished by  William  III.  the  modern  world  was  be- 
ginning to  appear. 

Literature  was  no  longer  monopolized  by  drama- 
tists and  theologians.  Essayists,  critics,  and  satirists 
began  to  show  themselves.  Journalism  begins  in 
this  period  and  becomes  recognized  as  a  political 
force.  Pope  was  now  thirteen  years  old  and  was 
writing  his  first  boyish  epic.  Swift  was  about  to 
bring  forth  his  "Battle  of  the  Books"  and  "Tale 
of  a  Tub,"  in  which  he  anticipated  Carlisle.     Addi- 

362 


A   COURTIER  AGAIN,  AND  AGAIN  IN  PRISON 

son  and  Steele  in  a  few  years  were  writing  the  Tat- 
ler  and  the  Spectator.  Defoe  had  already  written 
his  "  Essay  on  Projects,"  recommending  insurance, 
friendly  societies,  savings-banks,  insane  asylums,  and 
other  modern  methods.  It  was  this  book  which  in 
the  previous  volume  of  this  series  we  described  as 
having  had  such  a  profound  influence  on  Franklin. 
In  fact,  we  have  now  entered  the  period  and  the 
tone  of  thought  which  produced  Franklin  and  his 
worldly-wise  practical  philosophy.  This  change  from 
cruelty  to  philanthropy,  from  superstition  to  common 
sense,  must  have  deeply  interested  Penn  ;  but  he  has 
left  us  no  comments. 

His    return   to  court  was  fortunate,   because  he 
needed  a  courtier's  influence  to  stop  the  measure 
in    Parliament  for  abolishing    proprietary  colonies. 
But  it  was  a  very  expensive  life,  and  his  financial_J 
condition  grew  worse  and  worse.      Before  he  left: 
Pennsylvania  the  very  economical  Quaker  Assembly    ^ 
had  voted  him  ;^2000,  but  that  was  a  mere  trifle  ;     ^ 
and,   besides,   most  of  it  was  very  slowly  paid,  and 
part,  it  seems,  not  paid  at  all.*     He  must  have  more, 
as  he  wrote  to  Logan,  or  he  was  undone. 


"  Never  had  poor  man  my  task,  with  neither  men  nor  money  to 
assist  me.  I  therefore  strictly  charge  thee  that  thou  represent  to 
Friends  there^  that  I  am  distressed  for  want  of  supply ;  that  I  am 
forced  to  borrow  money,  and  add  debts  to  debts,  instead  of  paying 
them  off;  besides,  my  uncomfortable  distance  from  my  family,  and 
the  unspeakable  fatigue  and  vexation  of  following  attendance, 
draughts  of  answer,  conferences,  council's  opinions,  hearings,  &c., 
with  the  charge  that  follows  them,  guineas  melting,  four,  five,  six  a 

*  Janney,  p.  483. 
363 


CaA-^ 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

week,  and  sometimes  as  many  in  a  day.     My  wife  hitherto  has  been 
«  maintained  by  her  father.  .  .  .  Make  return  with  all  speed  or  I'm 

xmdone." 

Soon  after  this  the  proprietorship  of  the  Jerseys 
■  ■■■^  /  was  abolished,  and  the  two  colonies  of  East  and 
(   West  Jersey  made  one  under  the  direct  government 
\)f  the  crown.     This  looked  as  if  Pennsylvania  might 
go  the  same  way,  and  Penn  had  to  double  his  ex- 
ertions.      Every  one  thought    that   the    proprietor 
of  such   a   mighty  province   must  be  rich.       They 
think,  he  wrote   Logan,  "  I  have  brought  over  the 
whole    world   with   me."     This  was   very  inconve- 
;  nient,   "for,"  says  Penn,  "many  call  upon  me  for 

old  scores."  He  had  been  evidently  heaping  up 
debts  for  a  long  time,  which  was  a  serious  injury 
to  the  reputation  of  a  Quaker,  because  the  sect  at- 
tached great  importance  to  solvency,  and  sometimes 
disowned  a  member  who  suffered  the  misfortune  of 
bankruptcy. 

The   Church  of  England  party  in  the  province, 
which  had  long  opposed  his  interests,  but  had  been 
/  depressed  during  his  residence  there,  now  sprang  up 

;  again,  and  sent  a  representative  to  England  to  favor 

the  taking  of  the  province  by  the  crown.  The  war 
of  the  Spanish  succession  which  William  III.  had 
started  was  now  raging,  to  the  great  destruction  of 
British  trade.  Pennsylvania  languished,  and  the 
colonists  had  an  excuse  for  paying  Penn  neither 
quit-rents  nor  supplies.  So  he  no  doubt  believed 
more  firmly  than  ever  that  he  had  been  right  in 
supporting  vjames  against  that  William  whose  evil 
wars    were    still    working    such    havoc.      But    furs 

364 


A   COURTIER  AGAIN,  AND  AGAIN   IN  PRISON 

brought  a  high  price  in  England,  and  Penn  writes   / 
urgent  letters  to  Logan  to  buy  up  and  send  him  ') 
over  as  many  as  possible.     So  the  great  Quaker  was   ; 
in  his  distress  trying  to  become  a  fur  dealer ;  and  if 
Logan  had  sent  him  enough  peltries,  a  large  part  of 
his  embarrassment  might  have  been  relieved. 

People   took  the    most  annoying    advantages  of 
him.     He  had  given  some  land  to  George  Fox,  who 
in  his  will  left  it  to  the  Quakers  of  Pennsylvania.     It 
had  never  been  definitely  located,  and  the  thrifty     / 
Quaker  meeting,  wishing  to  have  as  valuable  a  gift      ' 
as  possible,  demanded  that  it  should  be  laid  out  in     i 
the  heart  of  Philadelphia.     Penn,  I  am  glad  to  say, 
resisted  this  imposition.     It  seems  the  Quakers  had 
not  long  before  obtained  from  Governor  Markham, 
but  without  Penn's  consent,  the  land  at  Second  and 
Market  Streets  which  he  had  intended  for  his  daugh- 
ter.    He  also  about  this  time  discovered  that  An>^} 
drew  Hamilton,   whom  he    had  appointed   deputy 
governor  of  the  province,  was  secretly  favoring  the 
party  in  England  that  wished  to  abolish  the  pro- 
prietorship.    Yet,  Hamilton  dying  at  this  time,  Penn/ 
exerted  himself  to  obtain  employment  for  one  of  his? 
sons.  ■ 

So  great  were  his  difficulties  that,  as  the  move- 
ment to  abolish  the  proprietary  governments  waned,  L^ 
he  tried  to  turn  the  tables  by  himself  proposing  to 
sell  his  government  to  the-  crown.  A  good  round 
sum  obtained  for  it  would  pay  his  debts,  relieve  him  * 
from  a  world  of  annoyance  and  expense,  and  he 
would  still  remain  the  proprietor  of  the  land  and 
enjoy  the  quit-rents.     He  intended  to  part  with  no 

365 


7 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

more  than  his  mere  political  right  to  govern.  He 
would  still,  he  wrote  Logan,  be  able  to  come  and 
live  in  the  province  and  love  it  as  much  as  ever.  A 
great  many  Quakers,  he  says,  were  about  to  migrate 
to  Pennsylvania,  so  that  the  superiority  would  be 
preserved.  This  plan  of  selling  his  right  to  govern 
he  kept  pressing  for  the  next  fifteen  years,  and  came 
very  near  accomplishing  it  for  a  good  price. 

His  son  William  finally  went  out  to  Pennsylvania 
in  company  with  the  new  governor,  one  John  Evans, 
a  young  man  of  only  twenty-six  years,  to  whom 
Penn  had  taken  a  fancy  and  fondly  supposed  he 
would  be  a  check  on  his  son.  The  two  scamps  at 
first,  however,  gave  a  very  favorable  impression. 
Logan  was  inclined  to  be  hopeful,  and  others  were 
not  a  little  pleased  and  flattered  by  the  manners 
and  elegance  of  William,  whose  association  with 
"top  company"  had  not  been  without  effect.  He 
was  taken  up  to  Pennsbury  to  meet  a  hundred 
Indians  who  had  come  to  pay  their  respects  to 
the  son  of  the  only  white  man  who  could  keep 
his  word,  and  everything  seemed  very  favorable. 
Logan  took  the  young  man  to  live  with  him  in 
a  large  house  which  then  stood  at  the  southwest 
corner  of  Third  and  Chestnut  Streets.  No  other 
place,  says  Logan,  could  be  found  suitable  for  the 
residence  of  the  heir  presumptive  to  the  province. 
He  was  given-a  place  in  the  Council  and  a  seat  next 
to  the  governor. 

He  succeeded  in  restraining  himself  within  mod- 
erate bounds  for  considerably  more  than  a  year ; 
but  I  suppose  colonial  life  became  at  last  too  monot- 

366 


/ 


A  COURTIER  AGAIN,  AND   AGAIN  IN  PRISON 

onous  ;  for  we  find  that  one  night  he  and  his  young 
friend,  the  governor,    broke  loose  entirely,  and  in 
good  old  English  roystering  fashion  began  to  beat     ( 
the  watch.     They  were  in   a  public  house  at  the      \ 
time  and  quite  drunk.      Young  Penn  called  for  pis- 
tols ;  but  the  lights  were  put  out,  and  he  received  a\ 
good  thrashing  from  Alderman  Wilcox,  who  pre- 1 
tended  he  could  not  recognize  him  in  the  darkness,  \ 
and,  when  he  announced  himself  as  the  heir  pre- 
sumptive, beat  him  again  as  a  slanderer.  "^ 
He  was  very  indignant  at  this  treatment,  and  also 
at  being  afterwards  treated  as  a  common  rioter.    The 
Quakers  endeavored  to  deal  with  him  for  his  mis- 
conduct ;  but  he  resented  their  attempt,  resigned  his 
membership,  proclaimed  himself  no  longer  a  Quaker, 
and  determined  to  leave  the  colony.     His  father  also, 
finding  him  as  expensive  as  ever  and  unimproved  in      , 
morals,   preferred  to  have  him  come  home.      He      / 
would,  he  said,  stop  his  allowance  and  let  him  face 
his  creditors.     He  had  been  given  a  manor  in  Penn- 
sylvania, which  it  was  hoped  he  would  look  after, 
but  he  soon  sold  it  for  £8^0  to  William  Trent  and 
Isaac  Norris.     It  was  a  large  tract  of  seven  thousand 
acres,   and  the   flourishing  borough  of  Norristown 
now  stands  upon  it.     He  needed  the  money  for  his 
expenses,  he  said,  because  his  father  did  not  give 
him  enough.     On  reaching  England,  however,  he 
immediately  began  to  sponge  again  on  his  father, 
who  was  not  told  that  he  had  sold  the  manor. 

"  A  melancholy  scene  enough  upon  my  poor  child.  Pennsylvania 
began  it  by  my  absence  here,  and  there  it  is  accomplished,  with  ex- 
pense, disappointment,  ingratitude,  and  poverty."     (Janney,  p.  467.) 

367 


^' 


\ 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

He  now  placed  his  losses  by  the  province  at 
;f  30,000  ;  a  demagogue,  David  Lloyd,  was  exciting 
the  colonists  against  him ;  and  the  young  man 
Evans  was  becoming  the  worst  deputy  governor  he 
had  ever  had. 

"  O  Pennsylvania  what  hast  thou  cost  me  ?  Above  ;^30,ooo  more 
than  I  ever  got  by  it,  two  hazardous  and  most  fatiguing  voyages,  my 
straits  and  slavery  here,  and  my  child's  soul  almost.  ...  In  short 
I  must  sell  all  or  be  undone,  and  disgraced  into  the  bargain." 

The  Assembly,  under  the  leadership  of  Lloyd, 
would  not  pay  the  deputy  governor  his  salary  of 
i;"400,  which  Penn  was  still  compelled  to  pay.  Yet 
Penn  was  all  this  time,  and,  indeed,  all  his  life,  fight- 
ing off  Lord  Baltimore's  claim,  which  would  have 
made  Philadelphia  a  Maryland  town,  and  doing  his 
best  to  protect  the  colony  from  interference  in  Par- 
liament 

He  at  this  time  supported  Evans  against  the 
Assembly,  who  claimed  that  they  had  a  right  under 
the  constitution  to  adjourn  as  they  pleased.  Evans 
contended,  as  his  predecessor  Hamilton  had  done, 
that  they  had  a  right  to  adjourn  from  day  to  day  or 
for  short  periods  within  the  session,  but  that  the 
session  could  be  closed  and  the  Assembly  finally  ad- 
journed only  by  the  governor.  Penn  supported  him 
in  this  because,  as  he  was  negotiating  with  the  crown 
for  the  sale  of  his  government,  he  could  get  a  better 
price  if  the  governor  retained  the  same  power  of 
adjournment  that  governors  in  most  of  the  other 
colonies  had.  The  crown  would  not  be  likely  to 
want  to  step  into   the  shoes  of  a  weak  governor 

368 


A   COURTIER  AGAIN,  AND  AGAIN  IN  PRISON 

among  a  people  who  were  accustomed  to  their  lib- \ 
erties.  The  Assembly  passed  a  bill  confirming  m 
themselves  the  power  of  adjournment ;  but  Evans 
refused  his  assent  to  it ;  and  of  this  bill  Penn  said, 
*'  What  a  bargain  should  I  have  made  for  my  gov- 
ernment with  the  crown  after  such  a  bill  had  taken 
from  me  the  power  I  should  dispose  of!"* 

There  was  not  a  little  resentment  among  the 
people,  and  the  Assembly  passed  nine  resolutions 
against  Penn,  which  were  referred  to  a  committee 
instructed  to  prepare  an  address  to  be  sent  to  him. 
The  address,  however,  was  sent  without  having  been 
submitted  to  the  house,  and  was  more  vindictively 
expressed  than  the  house  would  have  approved  of 
Lloyd  seems  to  have  drawn  it  and  sent  it  without 
authority. 

It  charged  Penn  with  having  instructed  his  deputy 
to  resist  the  right  of  adjournment,  of  allowing  his 
colonists'  consciences  to  be  oppressed  by  oaths 
under  royal  orders,  of  suffering  their  laws  to  remain 
unconfirmed  by  the  crown,  and  of  extortion  and 
corruption  in  the  sale  of  land.  His  personal  govern- 
ment while  in  the  colony  had  been  one  of  resent- 
ment and  recrimination,  and  he  had  taken  sides  with 
the  enemies  of  the  province.  The  smallest  point 
was  seized  upon  and  by  adroit  language  magnified 
against  him.  He  was  reminded  of  his  neglect  to 
pay  a  former  governor's  salary,  and  he  was  impu- 
dently asked  if  the  province  was  expected  to  dis- 
charge it     And,  finally,  he  was  informed  that  some- 


*  Janney,  p.  478. 
369 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 


thing   must  be  done  to  suppress  vice,   which  had 
greatly  increased  since  the  arrival  of  his  son. 

This  last  was  an  unkind  cut ;  and  to  make  matters 
worse  Lloyd  sent  the  address  to  some  Quakers  in 
England  who  were  the  remains  of  the  party  that 
had  been  unfriendly  to  Penn  since  the  revolution. 
They  were  told  to  use  the  address  as  they  thought 
best 

But  Lloyd  had  overreached  himself  The  address 
was  too  violent  and  offensive  to  be  popular  among 
the  people  of  the  province,  and  there  was  a  strong 
reaction  in  favor  of  Penn,  which  quite  unseated  Lloyd 
and  his  party.  The  Assembly  disapproved  of  the 
address,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  vote  ;£"i200  for 
the  support  of  government  Lloyd  was  ordered  to 
recall  the  address,  which  he  did,  but  accompanied 
the  recall  with  a  private  letter  to  the  bearer  instruct- 
ing him  not  to  execute  it 

^■"^Affairs  went  on  so  smoothly  that  Penn  began  to 
hesitate  about  selling  the  government  to  the  crown, 
and  everything  might  have  continued  in  this  happy 
condition  if  Evans  had  not  attempted  a  boy's  trick 
for  scaring  the  Quakers.  He  had  been  trying  to 
organize  a  militia  for  the  province,  and,  meeting  with 
much  difficulty  from  Quaker  principles,  he  arranged 
a  plan  for  the  day  of  the  annual  fair  in  Philadel- 
phia, and  had  a  messenger  arrive  in  great  haste 
and  terror  with  the  news  that  the  French  had  en- 
tered the  river  in  force  and  were  moving  on  the  city. 
Buckling  on  his  sword  and  mounting  his  horse,  he 
rode  up  and  down  among  the  people  entreating 
them  to  arm  and  defend  the  province. 

370 


I    A   COURTIER  AGAIN,  AND  AGAIN  IN  PRISON 

He  succeeded  in  stirring  up  a  slight  alarm.  The 
large  vessels  were  sailed  up  the  river ;  the  small 
boats  hidden  in  the  creeks ;  and  silverware  and 
valuables  thrown  into  wells.  But  the  farce  Wcis  soon 
over,  and  he  gained  just  four  militiamen,  who  came 
to  the  meeting  he  had  appointed  with  their  weapons. 
For  these  four  he  paid  the  price  of  ruining  his  career 
as  governor.  Popular  feeling  again  turned  against 
him,  and  Lloyd  went  once  more  into  power.  Evans 
tried  to  secure  for  Penn  the  proceeds  of  tavern  ) 
licenses  and  fines  and  forfeitures  ;  and  also  the  right 
to  establish  courts  of  law  by  proclamation  without 
the  consent  of  the  Assembly ;  but  this  only  made 
matters  worse. 

The  Assembly  now  attempted  to  strike  at  Penri\ 
through  Logan,  and  Logan  was  formally  impeached..^ 
But  this  failing,  they  prepared  an  address  to  be  sent  <^ 
to  Penn,  in  which  they  avoided  the  mistakes  of  vio- 
lence  and  bitterness  which  Lloyd  had  made  in  the 
first  one.     There  was  nothing  offensive  in  it ;  but 
Penn  was  reminded  that  unless  the  evil  practices  of 
his  deputy  governor  were  remedied  the  Assembly 
must  appeal  to  the  queen.      Evans  was   becoming 
unbearable,   and   was   guilty  of  gross    immoralities 
with    the    Indians.      There  were    other    complaints 
about  Penn's  failure  to  have  the  Quakers  relieved 
from  administering  oaths  ;  but^he  main  point  of  the! 
address  was  the  disgraceful  conduct  of  Evans.    ^ 

Some  time  before  this  another  burden  had  been 
laid   on  Penn's  shoulders  by  the  marriage   of   his  "> 
daughter,  Letitia,  to  William  Aubrey,  who  was  very     >, 
much  of  a  man  of  business,  "  a  scraping  man,"  Penn     / 

371 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 


called  him.  He  insisted  on  such  prompt  payment 
of  his  daughter's  marriage  portion,  and  was  so  con- 
tinuously persistent  about  it,  that  Penn  seems  to  have 
hated  him  more  than  he  ever  hated  anybody. 

Then  just  at  the  time  of  the  Assembly's  address 
about  Evans  there  was  a  revelation  in  Penn's  busi- 
ness affairs  that  was  most  unfortunate.  He  had  had 
for  a  long  time  a  steward  or  manager,  Philip  Ford, 
supposed  to  be  a  most  exemplaiy  Quaker,  who  had 
charge  of  his  estates  in  England  and  Ireland.  He 
was  very  fond  of  Ford,  as  he  was  of  so  many  peo- 
ple, kings  included,  and  he  gave  him  ten  thousand 
acres  in  Pennsylvania,  a  city  lot  in  Philadelphia,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  acres  in  the  suburbs,  and  seemed 
to  think  that  he  was  scarcely  giving  him  enough. 
But  Ford  had,  it  seems,  other  means  of  enriching 
himself 

He  rendered  accounts  from  time  to  time,  which 
Penn,  with  his  careless  business  habits,  received  and 
set  aside  without  examination  and  without  even 
opening  some  of  them.      Finally,  when  an  investiga- 

pSon  was  made,  it  appeared  that  although  Ford  had 
received  ;^  17,000  of  Penn's  money  and  expended 
only  ;^ 1 6, 000,  yet  Penn  owed  him  ;^io,500.  He 
accomplished  this  remarkable  result  by  charging 
compound  interest  at  eight  per  cent,  every  six 
months  on  all  advances,  to  which  he  added  large 
commissions,  charged  again  and  again  on  the  same 
sums,  and  an  enormous  salary.      He  allowed  Penn 

.  no  interest  on  receipts,  and  sometimes  failed  to  set 

\^dpwn  money  received. 

Penn  had  for  years  been  writing  Logan  how  the 
372 


l/-sr:$)i 


lib. 


Wl 


- 

1 

■ 

-•        £           of    t^ 

?  >:  ^      lis  g    t^  J  r^  ^ 

^-     m 

:i~-iL__ 

^   -                          '■■                                        ^ 

A   COURTIER  AGAIN,  AND   AGAIN  IN  PRISON 

income  from  his  estates  in  Great  Britain  was  grow- 
ing less  and  less,  and  now  it  was  quite  evident  how 
the  depreciation  had  occurred.  It  must  have  as- 
tonished Penn  when  Ford  first  reported  to  him 
that  instead  of  any  income  from  the  estates  the 
owner  of  the  estates  was  in  debt  to  the  manager  in 
some  thousands  of  pounds.  But  still  Penn  made  no 
investigation,  and  his  debt  to  Ford  kept  rolling  up. 
Ford  pressed  for  payment,  and  Penn,  still  making 
no  investigation,  committed  the  monstrous  folly  of 

fving  Ford  a  deed  in  fee  simple  of  the  whole  provM 
ce  of  Pennsylvania  as  security.      Some  time  after- 
wards he  committed  another  extraordinary  piece  of 
folly,  and  accepted  from  Ford  a  lease  of  the  prov- 
ince.    The  lease  was  of  course  strong  evidence  to  ^      , 
show  that  the  deed  was  intended  to  be  an  absolute       i 
conveyance ;  and  yet  there  is  no  doubt  that  Penn 
intended  the  deed  to  be  only  a  mortgage. 

It  is  probable  that  Ford  also  regarded  it  as  only  a 
mortgage,  and  during  his  life  time  the  whole  affair 
was  kept  secret.  In  fact,  Penn  seems  to  have  always 
dealt  with  Ford  in  a  private,  confidential  manner,  and 
without  taking  advice  from  any  one.  During  all 
this  time  it  was  never  generally  known  that  the  great 
Quaker,  as  he  was  called,  the  proprietor  and  gov- 
ernor of  her  Majesty's  colony  of  Pennsylvania,  had 
been  juggled  out  of  his  province  by  a  book-keeper. 

When  Ford   died,   however,   his  widow  and  son      , 
made   everything  public ;    declared   that  the   deed      \ 
passed  an  absolute  title,  and  announced  themselves       ^ 
as  the  proprietors  of  Pennsylvania.     They  treated 
Penn  as  their  tenant,  and  brought  suit  against  him  for 

373 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

f;f  3000  rent  in  arrear,  and,  having  obtained  a  judg- 
ment for  that  amount,  they  had  Penn  arrested  and 
'*)  imprisoned  for  debt     They  even  went  so  far  as  to 
attempt  to  get  a  proclamation  from  the  crown  de- 
\    daring  them  to  be  the  proprietors  of  Pennsylvania, 
;   and  commanding  the  colonists  to  obey  them. 
^^  When  they  arrested  Penn  the  officers  took  him 
\  while  he  was  at  the  meeting  in  Gracechurch  Street, 
I  or,  as  the  Londoners  sometimes  called  it,  Gracious 
Street     This  must  have  been  a  strange  and  sad  re- 
calling of  old  times,  for  it  was  at  this  same  meeting 
that  he  had  been  arrested  thirty-seven  years  before 
when  a  young  man  for  preaching  to  the  Quakers ; 
and  it  was  under  this  arrest  that  he  had  so  eloquently 
claimed  the  rights  of  a  British  freeman  to  a  fair  trial 
by  jury. 

For  nine  months  the  Fords  kept  Penn  confined  to 
the  Fleet  prison,  and  meantime  his  controversy  with 
them  was  going  through  the  tedious  process  of  a 
chancery  suit  His  friends,  however,  were  trying 
j  to  effect  a  compromise.  Penn  had  allowed  the 
iniquitous  account  to  run  on  so  long,  and  had  so 
often  tacitly  confirmed  it,  that  the  Fords  had  a  strong 
case  against  him.  But  he  displayed  all  his  old  cour- 
age and  serenity  in  prison,  to  which  he  had  been  well 
seasoned  in  his  youth.  He  was  allowed  rather  com- 
fortable quarters,  and  appears  to  have  held  small  re- 
ligious meetings  there,  as  well  as  meetings  of  his 
friends.  Isaac  Norris,  one  of  the  most  prominent 
colonists  of  Pennsylvania,  was  in  London,  and  did  all 
he  could  for  him.  He  speaks  particularly  of  his 
firmness  and  good  spirits. 

374 


f 


I  A  COURTIER  AGAIN,  AND  AGAIN  IN  PRISON 

f  "  After  all,  I  think  the  fable  of  the  palm  good  in  him — *  the  more 
he  is  pressed,  the  more  he  rises.*  He  seems  of  a  spirit  fit  to  bear 
and  rub  through  difficulties ;  and  as  thou  observes  his  foundation  re- 
mains. I  have  been  at  some  meetings  with  him,  and  have  been 
much  comforted  in  them,  and  particularly  last  First-day."  (Janney, 
p.  501.) 

I       Before  he  had  been  imprisoned  his  friends  were 
making  good  progress  in  raising  money  to  enable  him    ^ 
to  settle  with  the  Fords.     But  just  at  this  point  the    \ 
hostile  Quakers  to  whom  Lloyd  had  sent  the  violent    j 
memorial  came  forward  and  made  it  public.    The  very    ( 
serious  charges  in  it  staggered  many  of  Penn's  ad- 
mirers, and  an  ill-feeling  against  him  began  to  spread 
among  the  Quakers.      Fortunately  Norris,  who  was     , 
in  London,  had  been  in  the  Assembly  when  Lloyd      / 
sent  the  memorial,  and  he  disclosed  the  truth  about 
it.     He  certified  in  writing  that  the  memorial  as  it 
stood  had  never  been  passed  by  the  Assembly,  nor 
even  once  read  therein. 

The  manner  of  Penn's  arrest,  seizing  him  while  at  '■ 
a  religious  meeting,  began  now  to  work  in  his  favor 
by  appealing  to  the  better  feelings  of  his  people, 
arousing  no  doubt  their  recollections  of  the  old  days 
when  he  had  freely  gone  to  prison  for  their  faith. 
The  Fords  had  gone  rather  too  far,  for  such  severe 
treatment  of  a  great  man  brought  him  unusual  sym- 
pathy and  assistance. 

It  was  a  sort  of  difficulty  in  which  Penn  always 
shone  at  his  best,  for  he  knew  by  long  experience 
how  to  take  it.  He  had,  indeed,  built  up  his  repu- 
tation and  attained  the  position  which  gave  him 
influence  largely  by  the  heroic  endurance  of  im- 
prisonment At  the  end  of  his  nine  months  in  the 
'    "  "375 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

Fleet  £7600  was  raised,  and  this  the  Fords  accepted 
as  a  settlement ;  and  a  mortgage  on  Pennsylvania  to 
secure  that  sum  was  given  to  the  friends  who  had 
furnished  the  money. 

But  before  this  settlement  was  made  they  used 
the  recent  memorial  the  Assembly  had  sent  to  force 
Penn  to  dismiss  Deputy-Governor  Evans.  It  was 
strange  how  he  clung  to  this  man,  in  spite  of  the 
numerous  proofs  of  his  bad  morals  and  vile  conduct. 
He  had  written  him  a  most  gentle,  kindly  letter  of 
rebuke,  exhorting  him  to  a  better  life.  If  Penn  once 
liked  a  man,  or  believed  in  him,  it  was  almost  im- 
possible for  him  to  change  his  relations  with  him. 
in  spite  of  the  plainest  evidence.  He  would  pro 
ably  have  kept  Evans  if  those  three  sturdy  Quakers, 
Whitehead,  Mead,  and  Lowther,  to  whom  the  As- 
sembly's complaint  was  sent,  had  not  visited  him  in 
prison  and  told  him  plainly  that  if  he  did  not  dismiss 
Evans  they  would  lay  the  whole  matter  before  the 
queen. 

Even  then  he  was  determined  to  make  it  as  easy 
for  Evans  as  possible,  and  he  wrote  to  Logan, — 

"  Pray  break  it  to  him  and  that  the  reason  why  I  chose  to  change, 
rather  than  contest  with  the  complaints  before  the  queen  in  council, 
is,  that  he  may  stand  the  fairer  for  any  employment  elsewhere; 
which  would  be  very  doubtful  if  those  blemishes  were  aggravated  in 
such  a  presence.'* 


m, 


376 


XXIII 

THE   END 

The  deputy  governor  Penn  sent  out  in  place  of 
Evans  was  Colonel  Charles  Gookin,  and  Penn,  of 
course,  had  a  great  fancy  and  liking  for  him,  and  sent 
a  most  flattering  description  of  his  good  qualities  to 
the  colonists.  Penn  had  presented  him  to  the  queen, 
who  gave  him  her  hand  to  kiss  and  wished  him  a 
good  journey. 

He  had  his  difficulties  with  the  Assembly.  They 
objected  very  seriously  to  the  instruction  Penn  had 
given  him  not  to  approve  any  law  without  the  con- 
sent of  his  Council ;  for  the  Council,  they  said,  had 
been  given  no  power  or  even  existence  by  the  con- 
stitution of  1 70 1,  and  by  this  instruction  of  Penn's 
it  was  given  a  secret  control  of  legislation.  Then 
they  began  to  attack  Logan,  who  they  thought  had 
entirely  too  much  influence  with  the  deputy  governor 
and  with  Penn,  and  Logan  replied  with  so  many 
taunts  on  their  past  conduct  and  ill-treatment  of 
Penn  that  they  ordered  his  arrest,  and  he  was  taken 
on  a  writ  issued  by  the  speaker. 

The  governor,  however,  immediately  released  him, 
on  the  ground  that  the  Assembly  could  not  arrest 
any  one  outside  of  its  own  membership,  and  least  of 
all  a  member  of  the  Council.  Logan  sailed  for  Eng- 
land to  lay  the  whole  subject  before  Penn,  who  en- 

377 


-7 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM   PENN 

^    tirely  approved  of  his  conduct     But  before  Logan 

could  return  there  was  another  reaction  in  Penn's 

favor  among  the  people.     The  Assembly  had  gone 

too  far.     The  people  believed  that  both  the  new 

governor  and  Penn  were  doing  their  best,  and  at  the 

next  election — in  October,  1710 — they  returned  an 

Assembly  every  member  of  which  was  on   Penn's 

side.     Lloyd  was  so  discomfited  that  he  went  to  live 

in  Chester,  and  for  the  next  two  years  he  and  his 

anti-proprietary  party  were  seldom  heard  of 

^  This  change  in  the  feeling  of  the  people,  as  soon 

K  as  they  saw  the  prospect  of  a  little  good  government, 

\  shows  that  Penn  was  in  reality  very  popular  among 

\  them,  and  that  if  he  had   governed  in  person,  or 

appointed  fairly  discreet  deputies,  there  would  have 

been  no  anti-proprietary  party  and  few  difficulties. 

Before  the  election  which  turned  everything  in  his 
favor  took  place,  Penn  wrote  a  long  letter  to  the 
colonists,  addressing  them  as  "  My  old  Friends,"  and 
dealing  with  them  in  a  frank  and  affectionate  man- 
ner, which  seems  to  have  increased  their  regard  for 
him.  He  described  the  pleasure  it  had  been  to  him 
to  watch  the  early  prosperity  of  the  colony,  and  how 
it  had  since  then  been  to  him  a  cause  of  suffering. 


p    "  The  many  combats  I  have  engaged  in,  the  great  pains  and  in- 
credible expense  to  your  welfare  and  ease,  to  the  decay  of  my  former 
/      estate,  of  which  (however  some  there  would  represent  it)  I  too  sensi- 
'       bly  feel  the  effects,  with  the  imdeserved  opposition  I  have  met  with 
/       from  thence,  sink  me  into  sorrow,  that  if  not  supported  by  a  superior 
hand,  might  have  overwhelmed  me  long  ago.     And  I  cannot  but 
think  it  hard  measure,  that,  while  that  has  proved  a  land  of  freedom 
and  flourishing,  it  should  become  to  me,  by  whose  means  it  was  prin- 
cipally made  a  country,  the  cause  of  grief,  trouble,  and  poverty," 

378 


PENN  S    WRITING-DESK 


THE   END 

He  rehearses  all  the  forms  of  government  and 
I    privileges  he  had  given  them,  discusses  their  griev- 
ances, and  then  goes  on  to  tell  of  some  of  his  own. 

"  The  attacks  on  my  reputation  ;  the  many  indignities  put  upon  me 
in  papers  sent  over  hither  into  the  hands  of  those  who  could  not  be 
expected  to  make  the  most  discreet  and  charitable  use  of  them ;  the 
secret  insinuations  against  my  justice,  besides  the  attempt  made  upon 
my  estate;  resolves  passed  in  the  Assemblies  for  turning  my  quit- 
rents,  never  sold  by  me,  to  the  support  of  government ;  my  lands 
entered  upon  without  any  regular  method;  my  manors  invaded 
(under  pretence  I  had  not  duly  surveyed  them)  and  both  these  by 
persons  principally  concerned  in  these  attempts  against  me  here ;  a 
right  to  my  overplus  land  unjustly  claimed  by  the  possessors  of  the 
tracts  in  which  they  are  found ;  my  private  estate  continually  ex- 
hausting for  the  support  of  that  govemmem>  both  here  and  there, 
and  no  provision  made  for  it  by  that  country ;  to  all  which  I  can- 
not but  add  the  violence  that  has  been  particularly  shown  to  my 
secretary." 

They  were  not  an  oppressed  people,  he  said. 
The  trifles  of  which  they  complained  showed  that 
they  were  strangers  to  real  oppression.  They  com- 
plained that  official  fees  were  not  settled  by  act  of 
Assembly.  By  all  means,  let  them  settle  those  fees, 
and  make  them  such  as  to  encourage  fit  persons  to 
undertake  the  offices.  They  had  complained  of  the 
tavern-licenses,  but  that  matter  was  now  settled. 
They  should  remember  that  the  eyes  of  all  Europe 
were  upon  them  :  that  many  nations  looked  to  them 
as  a  land  of  ease  and  quiet,  wishing  in  vain  for  them- 
selves the  same  blessings. 

"  What  are  the  distresses,  grievances  and  oppressions,  that  the 
papers,  sent  from  thence,  so  often  say  you  languish  under,  while 
others  have  cause  to  believe  you  have  hitherto  lived  or  might  live,  the 
happiest  of  any  in  the  queen's  dominions." 

379 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

We  find  him  at  this  time  also  writing  to  Logan 
about  the  supposed  discovery  of  a  silver-mine  by  a 
Swiss,  named  Michel,  who  had  been  prowling  in  the 
woods  near  Conestoga.  In  his  poverty  and  need, 
Penn's  imagination  was  easily  aroused  by  such  a  sug- 
gestion. He  had  been  told  that  the  mine  had  d- 
ready  been  secretly  worked,  and  that  his  former 
deputy,  Evans,  had  shared  the  profits. 

*•  Pray  scrutinize  this  matter  well,  and  let  me  hear  from  thee  with 
all  the  speed  thou  canst ;  for  the  assurance  Michel  gives  me,  makes 
me  solicitous  to  pry  into  this  affair,  whence  help  may  arrive  to  deliver 
me." 

But  he  was  soon  convinced  that  there  was  more 
help  to  be  had  in  a  sale  of  his  government  to  the 
crown  than  in  any  silver-mines  on  the  Susquehanna, 
and  he  kept  on  trying  to  make  a  bargain.  Every- 
thing was  becoming  easier  for  him.  The  settlement 
of  the  Ford  claim  had  stopped  an  exhausting  drain 
on  his  resources,  and  he  could  now  get  some  returns 
from  his  English  propert)^  The  deputy  governor  got 
on  tolerably  well  with  the  Assembly.  They  regu- 
lated official  fees,  established  a  judiciary  system  and 
a  systematic  revenue  system,  and  the  province  was 
rapidly  settling  down  into  the  well-regulated  sort  of 
commonwealth  Penn  had  always  wished  to  see  it 
\  It  is  pleasant  to  be  able  to  think  that  he  enjoyed 
1  about  three  years  of  this  quiet  and  prosperity. 

He  had  given  up  his  attendance  at  court,  for  the 
movement  against  the  proprietary  colonies  had 
ceased  and  there  was  nothing  more  for  him  to  do 
there  for  the  Quakers.     He  was  now  nearly  seventy 

380 


i 


THE   END 

years  old,  and  seems  to  have  at  last  abandoned  all 
intention   of    returning   to    Pennsylvania.     But  for ) 
eight  or  nine  years  after  his  return  to  England,  in   \ 
1 70 1,  he  had  clung  to  the  thought  of  quickly  going  J 
back,  and  was  continually  writing  Logan  that  if  he 
could  only  settle  his  wretched  affairs  at  home,  he 
would  fly  with  delight  to  America. 

Meantime,  in  spite  of  the  difficulty  with  the  Fords 
and  his  attendance  at  court,  he  had  made  numerous 
preaching  journeys.  He  had  also  written  somewhat, 
and  added  a  goodly  number  of  maxims  to  those  he 
had  prepared  when  in  concealment  in  the  reign  of 
William  III.  In  171 1  he  wrote  a  preface  to  the 
journal  of  an  old  Quaker  friend,  John  Banks^  and\  ^ 
this  seems  to  have  been  the  last  time  he  wrote  for3 
publication. 

After  he  ceased  to  attend  court  he  seems  to  have*^ 
lived  about  eight  miles  from  London,  near  Brentford.  I 
In  1 7 10,  however,  when  he  was  sixty-six  he  found! 
his  strength  declining,  and  that  the  air  near  London/ 
did  not  suit  him.  He  moved  farther  into  the  country] 
near  Ruscombe,  where  he  lived  the  rest  of  his  life.\ 
About  two  years  afterwards,  while  on  a  visit  to] 
London,  he  was  taken  ill  of  what  he  called  a  fever, 
and  his  wife  called  a  **  lethargic  illness,"  and  others 
"a  kind^oLapoplectic  fit"  or  "_£alsy."  It  was  evi-  \ 
dently  what  we  would  now  call  a  stroke  of  paralysis.^J 

He  seems  to  have  recovered,  and  was  able  to  at- 
tend to  his  affairs.  He  had  almost  completed  the 
sale  of  his  government  to  the  crown.  His  great 
difficulty  was  in  the  conditions  on  which  the  sale 
must  be   made.     He  wanted  money ;    but  he  also 

381     ^ 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 


( 


haiLa  great  reputaUoii  to  Jnaixilaip.  He  would  not 
sell  his  right  in  a  way  that  would  jeopardize  the 
principles  on  which  the  colony  was  founded,  and  its 
civil  and  religious  liberty.  It  must  always  remain  a 
secure  refuge  for  the  Quakers.  All  this  must  be 
made  sure  before  he  received  a  shilling;  and  he 
was  very  particular  on  this  point  in  negotiating  with 
the  officers  of  the  crown. 
^-^  After  his  first  stroke  of  paralysis  he  had  brought 
the  matter  to  a  state  that  was  satisfactory  ;  a  deed 
was  ready  to  be  signed,  and  ;^iooo  had  been  paid 
him  on  account  of  the  purchase  money,  which  was 
to  be  ;^i8, 150.  This  sum,  it  will  be  observed,  was 
about  ;£'2000  more  than  the  ;£'i6,ooo  due  from  the 
crown  to  his  father,  in  liquidation  of  which  Pennsyl- 
vania had  been  granted. 

But  before  he  could  sign  the  deed  he  was  stricken 
again  with  paralysis  while  he  was  writing  to  Logan  a 
letter  which  he  could  not  finish,  and  which  proved 
to  be  the  last  he  ever  wrote.  He  recovered  suf- 
ficiently to  attempt  a  littie  business,  but  within  three 
or  four  months  he  was  seized  again  in  the  same  way. 

These  three  strokes,  all  within  a  year,  completely 
invalided  him,  and  partially  wrecked  his  mind.  He 
had  been  a  much  hated  and  abused  man  in  his  life, 
and  after  his  death  his  enemies  circulated  the  story 
that  he  had  died  a  raging  madman.  But  there  was 
no  truth  in  it  His  mind  was  merely  weakened  by 
the  paralysis.  He  forgot  his  cares,  and  a  certain 
serenity,  which  seemed  partly  natural  and  partly  the 
result  of  his  religion,  remained. 

But  the  sale  could  not  be  completed  ;  for  with  his 
382 


THE  END 

mind  impaired  the  deed  would  not  have  been  valid 
if  he  had  signed  it  So  the  government  of  Pennsyl- 
vania as  well  as  the  ownership  of  the  land  remained 
with  his  family  until  the  American  Revolution  of 
1776. 

In  the  ypar  T7T^,^h^  Y^^r  after  hewas^trick^n 
and  his  mind  impaired,  peace  was  at  last  declared, 
and  the  trade  of  the  Delaware  River  immediately 
began  to  revive.  This  was  the  event  for  which  he 
had  been  waiting  many  years,  the  event  that  would 
end  the  long  wars  in  which  his  old  enemy  William 
III.  had  involved  England.  He  had  even  hesitated 
in  selling  his  government,  expecting  that  he  might 
hear  of  the  cessation  of  hostilities  at  any  time.  He 
was  confident  that,  as  soon  as  peace  came,  his  re- 
turns from  sales  of  land  and  quit-rents  would  greatly 
increase  and  soon  place  him  beyond  any  necessity 
of  selling.  But  now  the  good  time  had  come  when 
his  mind  could  no  longer  appreciate  it,  and  the  re- 
sults had  hardly  time  to  gather  very  much  headway 
before  he  had  ceased  to  live. 

His  wife  had  taken  charge  of  all  his  affairs ;  and 
she  proved  herself  an  excellent  manager.  The 
deputy  governor  was  soon  in  a  terrible  quarrel  with 
the  Assembly,  and  his  recall  was  demanded.  Mrs. 
Penn  dismissed  him  and  appointed  in  his  stead  Sir 
William  Keith,  who  had  a  prosperous  and  popular 
administration  of  ten  years.  Pennsylvania  went  to 
her  and  her  children,  while  the  English  and  Irish 
estates,  at  that  time  thought  the  more  valuable,  were 
settled  on  Guli's  son  William,  who  seems  to  have 
continued  his  dissipations. 

383 


THE  TRUE   WILLIAM   PENN 

In  a  few  years,  however,  Pennsylvania  became 
enormously  valuable,  and  Penn's  sons  by  his  second 
wife  became  very  rich  men.  So  Penn's  ambition  of 
adding  to  his  family  fortune  as  well  as  establishing  a 
refuge  for  the  Quakers  was  realized  at  last  But  the 
history  of  the  management  of  the  province  by  his 
sons  and  their  great  wealth  cannot  be  given  here.* 

Penn'&Jast  ^gears^a^erejasiy-  peacefuir^ 

"  Found  him  to  appearance  pretty  well  in  health  and  cheerful  of 
disposition,  but  defective  in  memory ;  so  that,  though  he  could  relate 
many  past  transactions,  yet  he  could  not  readily  recollect  the  names 
of  absent  persons,  nor  could  he  deliver  his  words  so  readily  as  here- 
tofore ;  yet  many  savory  and  sensible  expressions  came  from  him, 
rendering  his  company  even  yet  acceptable,  and  manifesting  the  re- 
ligious stability  of  his  mind."  (Life  prefixed  to  his  Works,  vol.  i. 
p.  150.) 

He  continued  to  decline  very  slowly  and  grad- 
ually for  about  six  years.  For  two  or  three  years 
there  was  not  much  change.  He  received  the 
visits  of  his  friends,  and  on  Sundays  was  driven  to 
meeting,  where  he  sometimes  spoke  a  few  sentences, 
and  on  returning  home  took  leave  of  his  friends  with 
great  tenderness.  He  enjoyed  walking  out  of  doors, 
and  when  the  weather  was  bad  he  diverted  himself, 
as  his  wife  tells  us,  from  room  to  room  of  his  large 
house.  He  took  great  delight  in  his  children,  and 
could  scarcely  bear  to  have  his  wife  out  of  his  sight. 
As  long  as  she  kept  from  him  the  thoughts  of  his 
business  affairs  he  was  happy  ;  but  if  his  mind  was 
turned  to  his  disastrous  finances,  or  the  deplorable 

*  See  Pennsylvania:  Colony  and  Commonwealth,  pp.  66,  84,  122, 
127, 128,  169,  and  passim. 

384 


•rM^^n 


PENN'S    BUKIAL-i'LACE,   JORDAN'S    MEETING-HOUSE 


THE   END 

'condition  of  his  interests  in  Pennsylvania,_the  effect 
was  most  unfortunate. 

In  1 716  he  could  no  longer  remember  names,  *^^ 
but  appeared  to  know  who  the  persons  were  who  / 
came  to  see  him.  The  next  year  he  scarcely  knew  \ 
any  one,  and  could  no  longer  walk  without  leading ;  / 
and  in  the  following  year,  17 18,  on  the  30th  of  July,  / 
at  the  age  of  s|tventy-four,  he  died.  i 


38s 


Index 


Affirmation  instead  of  oath,  185. 
Albigenses,  86. 
Amyrault,  Moses,  100. 
Antinomians,  82,  84. 
Aubrey,  William,  339,  371. 

Baltimore,  Lord,  236. 
Barclay,  Robert,  121,  201,  285. 
Baxter,  Penn's  controversy  with, 

179. 
Bevan,  Sylvanus,  16. 
Bishops,  the  seven,  292. 
BucHAN,  Earl  of,  274. 
Burnett,  Bishop,  28,  260,  271, 

373,  317,  320. 

Callowhill,   Hannah,   marries 

Penn,  339. 
Charles  I.,  35,  36. 
Charles  II.,  secret  treaty  with 

Louis   XIX.,  166;    death   of, 

254. 

Chester,  name  of,  given  to  Up- 
land, 231. 

Civil  war,  the,  37. 

Cobham,  Lord,  16. 

Cole,  Josiah,  198. 

Congregationalists,  33. 

Cornish,  260. 

Corruption  in  Admiral  Penn's 
time,  44. 


Crisp,  William,  251,  252. 
Croese,  Gerard,  256,  263,  310. 

Dalrymple,  319  321. 
Delaware,  State  of,  208,  230. 
Delaware,  the,  scenery  of,  231. 
Dyer,  Mary,  84. 

Elwood,  John,  165. 

England,  condition  of,  in  Penns' 
time,  III  ;  coarseness  of  lan- 
guage and  life  in,  114, 116. 

Evans,  Governor,  366,  368,371, 
376. 

Evelyn  waylaid  by  highway- 
men, 112. 

Exclusive  salvation,  doctrine  of, 
80. 

Executions  in  Penn's  time,  117. 

Familists,  82,  83. 
Fifth-Monarchy  men,  34. 
Fletcher,    Colonel    Benjamin, 

346. 
Ford,  Philip,  372-376. 
Fox,  George,  72-77,  122,   123, 

132,  169,  I73»i97,2i5,365. 
Friendship,  dangers,  of,  229. 

Game  on  the  Delaware,  232. 
Gaunt,  Elizabeth,  260. 
Gentry  of  England,  43. 
GooKiN,  Colonel  Charles,  377. 


387 


INDEX 


Hampden,  John,  36. 
Hart,  Charles  Henry,  17. 
Hat,  anecdote  of,  with  James  H., 

123. 
Hrad,  J.  Merrick,  14. 
Hkmskirck,  Egbert,  18. 
Hicks,  Penn's  controversy  with, 

170,  171. 

Indians,  Penn's  treaty  with,  242- 
247  ;  treatment  of,  by  Penn, 
211. 

Indulgence,  Declaration  of,  by 
Charles  II.,  166,  173  ;  Penn 
writes  about  it,  267 ;  an  in- 
dulgence by  James  II.,  280; 
another  by  him,  291. 

Ives,  Penn's  controversy  with, 
152. 

James  II.,  Penn  explains  Quaker 
faith  to,  123 ;  professes  lib- 
erality, 255 ;  releases  Quakers 
from  prison,  255,  280,  290 ; 
his  word  for  liberty,  281 ;  flies 
to  France,  292. 

Jeffreys,  Judge,  257. 

Jesuits,  296. 

Kinsale,  Penn  goes  to,  102. 
Kneller,  Sir  Godfrey,  19. 

Labadie,  De,  183. 
Laud,  Archbishop,  36. 
Lawton,  Charlewood,  264,  280. 
Leslie    criticises   the    Quakers, 

122. 
Liberty,  Anglo-Saxon,  32. 
,    Religious,   Penn    devotes 

himself  to,  122;    Penn  writes 

on,  160,  189. 
Lloyd,  David,  368-370,  378. 


Lloyd,  Thomas,  254. 
Locke,  John,  263. 
LOE,  Thomas,  96,  199. 
Logan,  James,  349,  371,  377. 
London  in  Penn's  time,  113. 
Louis  XIX.,  secret  treaty  with 

Charles  II.,  166. 
Luttrell,  Narcissus,  300,  326, 

330. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  258-260,  303, 

330. 
Magdalen  College,  287,  288. 
Markham,  William,  208. 
Maxims,  Penn's,  26. 
Mead,   William,    arrested   with 

Penn,  141. 
Middle  Ages,  the,  effect  of,  77  ; 

religion  of,  78-81. 
Miracles    in  the    Middle   Ages, 

79- 
Monmouth,  Duke  of,  257. 
Music  in  Penn's  time,  118. 

Navy,  the,  in  Admiral  Penn's 
time,  44,  46-48. 

New  Jersey,  200-202 ;  proprie- 
torship in,  abolished,  364. 

«  No  Cross,  No  Crown,"  132. 

NoRRis,  Isaac,  375. 

Gates,  Titus,  186. 

Oaths,  Treatise  of,  by  Penn,  22, 

175-178. 
Oxford  in  Penn's  time,  62-64. 

Parliament,  Regulation  of,  by 
James  IL,  290. 

Penn,  Admiral,  39-57  ;  rapid  rise 
in  the  navy,  45  ;  pursues  Prince 
Rupert,  49 ;  in  the  Dutch  wars 
of  Cromwell,  50 ;  treachery  of. 


388 


INDEX 


51,  52;  in  the  Tower,  53; 
friend  of  the  Duke  of  York, 
54 ;  Pepys's  description  of  him, 
55 ;  Clarendon's  description, 
56 ;  impeached,  56  ;  fortune  of, 

57. 

Penn,  Dennis,  339. 

,  Giles,  43,  45. 

,  Hannah,  339. 

,  John,  339. 

,  John,  the  American,  349. 

,  Lady,  39,  40. 

,  Letitia,  339. 

,  Margaret,  339. 

,  Mrs.,  visits  James  II.,  of 

France,  333. 

,  Richard,  339. 

,  Springett,  339. 

,  Thomas,  339. 

,  William,  portraits  of  him, 

12-20;  his  character  and 
traits,  20-30;  birth,  31,  38; 
his  mother,  39  ;  ancestry,  41, 
42,  43  ;  early  political  influ- 
ences, 58,  59  ;  early  religious 
influences,  60;  goes  to  col- 
lege, 61,  65  ;  his  use  of  "  thee" 
and  "thou,"  68;  reasons  for 
joining  the  Quakers,  95  ;  re- 
volts against  surplices  at  Ox- 
ford, 96  ;  expelled  from  col- 
lege, 97  ;  turned  out  of  doors  by 
his  father,  98 ;  travels  in  France 
and  Italy,  98,  99;  fights  in 
Paris,  100 ;  studies  under  Amy- 
rault,  100;  studies  law,  loi  ; 
goes  to  Ireland,  102;  becomes  a 
soldier,  103 ;  joins  the  Quakers, 
104;  first  imprisonment,  107, 
108;  turned  out  of  doors 
again,  110;  protests  against 
obscenity,    115;     becomes    a 


preacher,  121 ;  retains  his 
sword,  123;  becomes  a  con- 
troversialist, 124;  goes  to 
court,  125 ;  controversy  with 
Vincent,  126;  writes  "The 
Sandy  Foundation,"  126-130; 
imprisoned  for  "  Sandy  Foun- 
dation," 131;  writes  "No 
Cross,  No  Crown,"  132  ;  writes 
"  Innocency  with  her  Open 
Face,"  135 ;  released  from 
prison,  136;  goes  again  to 
Ireland,  138  ;  reconciled  to  his 
father,  140 ;  arrested  in  Grace- 
church  meeting,  140;  defends 
trial  by  jury,  142-146 ;  released 
by  his  father,  149;  death  of 
his  father,  150;  becomes  rich, 
151 ;  controversy  with  Ives, 
152;  attacks  vice-chancellor 
of  Oxford,  153,  154;  sus- 
pected of  being  a  Jesuit,  154, 
155  ;  arrested  as  dangerous  to 
the  government,  156-161 ;  goes 
to  Holland,  162;  marries, 
166;  traditions  of,  as  a  preacher, 
168  ;  controversy  with  Hicks, 
170;  secures  release  of  Fox, 
175  ;  his  "  Treatise  of  Oaths," 
175-178  ;  argues  again  on  re- 
ligious liberty,  178,  179 ;  con- 
troversy with  Baxter,  179  ;  goes 
to  Holland,  181-184;  appeals 
to  Parliament  for  affirmation 
instead  of  oath,  185  ;  supports 
Sydney  for  Parliament,  192; 
argues  that  Protestants  should 
unite,  194  ;  proposes  new  test 
oath,  195 ;  asks  for  the  grant 
of  Pennsylvania,  197 ;  first 
suggestions  of  Pennsylvania, 
199  ;  his  connection  with  New 


389 


INDEX 


Jersey,  200 ;  vast  size  of  Pcnn- 
fylvania,  206;  charter  of 
Pennsylvania,  207 ;  obtains 
Delaware,  208;  sends  out 
Markham,  208 ;  advertises  for 
settlers,  209  ;  his  motives,  210 ; 
treatment  of  the  Indians,  211  ; 
lays  out  Philadelphia,  213, 
214 ;  resists  Wilkinson's  de- 
mand for  more  liberty,  215 ; 
consults  with  Sydney  about 
constitution,  217 ;  consults 
with  many  others,  220;  nu- 
merous drafts  for  Constitution, 
221-226;  advanced  ideas  of 
government,  225-228 ;  starts 
for  the  province,  229,  230; 
arrives  in  the  Delaware,  231 ; 
visits  the  site  of  Philadelphia, 
234;  goes  to  Maryland,  236; 
passes  the  winter  at  Chester, 
237  ;  delighted  with  his  prov- 
ince, 238 ;  his  famous  treaty 
with  the  Indians,  242-247  ; 
travels  to  the  Susquehanna, 
248 ;  his  letter  to  Free  Society 
of  Traders,  248 ;  returns  to 
England,  250;  takes  up  lib- 
erty of  conscience  again,  253  ; 
losses  by  the  province,  254; 
becomes  a  courtier,  256;  his 
description  of  Monmouth's  re- 
bellion, 258 ;  accused  of  ex- 
torting money  for  Taunton 
maids,  259;  attends  the  exe- 
cution of  Cornish  and  Gaunt, 
259,  260;  a  pardon  obtainer, 
261  ;  difficulty  of  his  position 
with  the  king,  261  ;  his  work 
as  a  courtier,  262,  263 ;  ex- 
travagance of  his  life  as  a 
courtier,  265  ;  another  journey 


to  Holland,  270;  visits  the 
Prince  of  Orange,  271  ;  losses 
by  Pennsylvania,  277 ;  en- 
courages grape-growing  in 
Pennsylvania,  278 ;  supports 
Declaration  of  Indulgence, 
280 ;  favors  abolishing  the 
test  laws,  283 ;  his  anonymous 
pamphlet  in  support  of  James 
II.,  283  ;  supports  James  II. 's 
Declaration  of  Indulgence, 
286;  believed  in  James  II., 
286;  inconsistency  to  his  po- 
sition, 289  ;  tries  to  win  Law- 
ton  to  the  king,  293;  his 
association  with  Jeffreys,  294 ; 
given  a  chance  to  explain  him- 
self, 296;  replies  to  Popple's 
letter,  298;  pK)sition  in  the 
revolution  of  1688,  302-305  ; 
arrested  on  suspicion  of  treason, 
305 ;  his  opinion  of  the  Tol- 
eration Act,  307  ;  accused  by 
Macaulay  of  plotting,  309 ;  re- 
ceives a  letter  from  James  II., 
310;  prepares  to  go  to  Penn- 
sylvania, 313  ;  attempt  to  ar- 
rest him,  314 ;  goes  into 
hiding,  314  ;  appeals  to  Henry 
Sydney,  318  ;  inclines  to  turn 
state's  evidence,  322 ;  ne- 
gotiations with  the  govern- 
ment, 323-326 ;  goes  to 
France,  326 ;  seizure  of  the 
government  of  Pennsylvania, 
327  ;  negotiates  again  with  the 
government,  328 ;  set  free  at 
last,  329 ;  still  suspected  of 
treason,  331  ;  his  occupations 
while  in  hiding,  332  ;  his  ar- 
gument for  arbitration,  333; 
death  of    his  wife,  334;    un- 


390 


INDEX 


popularity  in  Pennsylvania, 
335  ;  unpopularity  among  the 
Quakers  in  England,  335 ;  his 
government  returned  to  him, 
337  ;  preaching  journeys,  338; 
second  marriage,  339 ;  pro- 
poses union  of  the  colonies, 
341  ;  sails  for  Pennsylvania, 
342 ;  confused  methods  of  gov- 
ernment, 344 ;  attempt  at  des- 
potism, 345 ;  arrives  in  the 
province,  348 ;  puts  down  the 
pirates,  350 ;  enjoys  himself  at 
Pennsbury,  352  ;  his  life  there, 
353 ;  visits  the  Susquehanna 
again,  355 ;  visits  Maryland, 
356 ;  his  losses  by  the  province, 
357  ;  obliged  to  return  to  Eng- 
land, 358 ;  gives  the  people  a 
constitution,  358;  becomes  a 
courtier  under  Queen  Anne, 
362  ;  deeply  in  debt,  364  ;  tries 
to  sell  his  government,  365 ; 
violent  address  against  him 
from  the  province,  369;  re- 
action in  his  favor,  370;  deal- 
ings with  Philip  Ford,  372- 
376  ;  imprisoned  for  debt,  374  ; 
dismisses  Evans,  376  ;  reaction 
in  his  favor  again,  378  ;  hope 
from  a  silver-mine,  380;  first 
stroke  of  paralysis,  381  ;  mind 
impaired,  382  ;  great  improve- 
ments in  Pennsylvania,  383  ; 
last  years,  384. 

,  William,  Jr.,  339  ;  becomes 

dissipated,  360  ;  sent  to  Penn- 
sylvania, 361,  366;  returns 
from  Pennsylvania,  367. 

Pennington,  Isaac,  164. 

Pennsbury,  253,  352,  354. 

Penns- Lodge,  43. 


Pennsylvania,  origin  of,  197 ; 
boundary  disputes  of,  205 ; 
vast  size  of,  206;  charter  of, 
207  ;  constitution  of,  by  Penn, 
221,  226;  condition  of,  on 
Penn's  arrival,  231 ;  seizure  of 
the  government  of,  327. 

Peter  the  Great,  of  Russia,  340. 

Petre,  Father,  291. 

Philadelphia,  origin  of  name, 
213 ;  streets  of,  as  laid  out  by 
Penn,  235  ;  building  of,  239, 
240. 

Piracy  in  Pennsylvania,  350. 

Place,  Francis,  15. 

Plague  in  London,  loi. 

Plot,  popish,  186. 

Popish  plot,  186. 

Popple's  letter  to  Penn,  297. 

Portraits  of  Penn,  12-20. 

Presbyterians,  33. 

Preston,  Lord,  312,  317, 319, 320. 

Proud,  Robert,  17. 

Puritans,  32,  33,  36. 

Quakers,  the,  dress  of,  21 ;  eccen- 
tricities of,  69 ;  doctrines  of,  70, 
71  ;  objection  to  politics,  72; 
objection  to  war,  72  ;  the  return 
to  primitive  Christianity,  85, 
86;  legislation  against,  87,  88- 
91 ;  heroism  of,  89, 90;  philan- 
thropy and  liberalism  of,  92  ; 
distinguished  men  among,  93  ; 
rationalism  of,  94;  thirteen 
hundred  released  by  James 
11.,  255. 

Quarry,  Colonel,  349. 

Ranters,  76,  82. 

Raynal,  his  opinion  of  the 
treaty  with  the  Indians,  246. 


391 


INDEX 


Reformation,  the,  32,  8i,  84. 
Richardson,  Jonathan,  20. 
Rights,  Bill  of,  309. 
Robinson,  Sir  John,  puts  Pcnn 

in  Newgate,  159. 
Roundheads,  31. 
Royalists,  31,  35. 


Sachse,  Julius  F.,  18. 

"  Sandy  Foundation,  The,"  126- 

130. 
Seekers,  82,  83. 
Ship-money,  36. 
Slate-roof  house,  the,  349. 
Small-pox  on  Penn's  ship,  230. 
Springett,  Guli,  163-166;  visits 

James  II.  in  France,  333. 
Stuart,  Major  W.  D.,  14. 

,  Robert,  of  Coltness,  274. 

Sunderland,  Lord,  275. 
Surplice,  rebellion  against,  65. 
Susquehanna,     expeditions     to, 

248.  355- 
Sword,  Penn  retains  his,  123. 
Sydney,    Algernon,   192,    193, 

217-219. 
,    Henry,    276,  318,   322- 

324. 


Tillotson,  Dr.,  262. 
Toleration  Act,  the,  306. 
Traders,  Free  Society  of,  248. 
Treaty,    the,   with   the   Indians, 

242-247. 
Turner,  Mrs.,  40,  41. 

ViCKRis,  Richard,  253. 
Vincent,     Penn's     controversy 

with,  126. 
Voltaire,  his  opinion  of   the 

treaty  with   the  Indians,  245, 

246. 

Waldenses,  the,  86. 

Wanstead,  Penn's  life  at,  58,  59. 

Waterhouse,  Alfred,  18. 

West,  Benjamin,  20,  243. 

William  III.  argues  against 
Penn,  271  ;  his  ideas  of  tol- 
eration, 273;  comes  to  Eng- 
land, 292 ;  becomes  less  pop- 
ular in  England,  313;  dies, 
361. 

Witchcraft,  79. 

Wood,  Rebecca,  355. 

York,  Duke  of,  166  174,  208. 


THE  END 


-5) 


39» 


HOME  USE 
CIRCULATION  DEPARTWENT 

MAIN  UBRART 

•'^k&-^''z: 


w. 


le. 


L!) 


LD21— A-40ni--5.'74 


General  Library     .         iriJ/ 
Berkcitf 


(A 


WT 


^XHo^^ 


FiBX 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


